


In the Shadows of My Mind

by Schnickledooger



Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Other, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-12-12
Updated: 2013-09-23
Packaged: 2017-11-21 00:34:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 21,992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/591444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Schnickledooger/pseuds/Schnickledooger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They say he hasn't been right in the head since he fell through the ice. They say that the man who is enshrouded in shadows and lives under his bed isn't real. But Jack knows he's there, always watching, waiting to drag this one mortal who can see him into his realm of nightmares. Human Jack/Pitch</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Shattered Ice

**Author's Note:**

> Fill for RotG kink meme on dreamwidth. Prompt was this: Jack actually survived his accident in the lake, or someone was near to take him out, idk... but due to that near death experience he can see Pitch when he was in one of his weakest form. So naturally, the Nightmare King gets a little possessive with this strange human, and they form some bond... Totally up to writer if Jack become Frost or not...

  _Water._

_Sharp as daggers, slicing into his skin. The bitter coldness of it filling his lungs._

_The weight of his body sinking swiftly like a stone into the dark, frigid depths._

_The reflection of the sun shining mockingly through the ice above him growing dimmer every second._

_The growing pressure around his head as the lake held him in its icy clutches and ruthlessly squeezed._

" _Give in," the water whispered as it wove itself around him tightly. "Give in and stay with us forever."_

_The cobwebs that swept across his mind, blocking out every reason and memory of why he should keep fighting, keep striving to hang onto the fragile thread of life when the water was so very inviting._

" _Don't leave," the water pleaded, caressing his numb limbs. "Stay, stay, it's so very peaceful down here. Why would you want to go back up?"_

_There had been a glimpse of face that had flashed before his eyes. Brown hair, someone, something, and brown, the color brown mattered, but he was so tired._

_And the water had become so deliciously warm..._

_He shut his eyes and gave himself over to the lake's welcoming embrace._

 

oOo

"Jack! _Jack?!"_

Someone was screaming, high-pitched and hysterical, and his ears were ringing. His chest heaved a violent spasm that sent him rocking forward choking on the liquid trapped in his lungs. Strong hands gripped him by the shoulders and turned him over where he proceeded to empty the contents of his stomach. It seemed to help dispel the remaining water he had unwittingly swallowed.

He crouched there, doubled over on the cold, frozen ground, coughing and gasping for air, and was barely aware of the small figure that had attached itself to one of his arms and was crying terribly.

"Jack, Jack, I'm sorry!" the figure shrilled, pressing her face into his shoulder as her small body wracked with sobs.

It was a girl. A girl with brown hair. Brown… oh, yes, he knew her, didn't he?

His head was buzzing and he couldn't think clearly, couldn't _feel_ anything but the bitter cold of winter wind seeping into his wet clothes, into his skin, and into his very bones as it blew its icy breath down the back of his neck.

"Jack," the girl at his side said again, tugging on the soaked sleeve of his shirt. "Jack, please say something!"

Jack… that was his name, wasn't it? Everything was slowly coming back to him now.

"Enough, Emma, leave him be," came another voice, deeper and more gruff. "The poor lad's probably brain-dead now. Spent too much time under-water ."

"No, he's not!" the girl shrieked angrily before bursting into tears again.

Under water… the lake, oh, they had gone skating… but the ice had been too thin…

"Ay, he'll be useless as a lump on a log no doubt," the gruff voice rumbled on. "Just like ole Mrs. Putnam's grown son, the one that got born with his birthing cord around his neck. Not good for nothing except sitting in a rocker and drooling."

"STOP IT!" the girl screamed, letting go of her hold on him to rush over and begin beating at the man with her tiny fists. "Take it back, take it back, _take it back!"_

"Ease off there," the man said, swatting her away gently with his muscled arm. "Taking it back won't change anything. You children shouldn't have been playing on the lake so early in winter. It's all your fault, really, this happened. Just count yourself lucky I was out checking my traps today. Poor git," Jack felt the man's gaze fall on him. "Would'a been kinder to let him drown, I suppose."

The most horrific, heart-wrenching wail fell out of the girl's mouth as she collapsed on the white ground, on the _snow,_ and buried her face in her hands.

Something stirred with Jack at the sight, because the girl was young and small, and other people shouldn't pick on her, no one but him… because, because… because she was Emma, and he didn't allow anyone to bully her… brown-haired, Emma, Emma… his _sister._ Oh.

He opened his mouth to say something, tell her he was alright, he was fine, he was, wasn't he? He had just imagined that the lake had talked to him. But all that came out was a symphony of gigantic sneezes followed by a severe case of the shivers.

"Damn foolish children," he heard the man curse as something heavy and warm was draped over him, before he was swung up over the man's broad shoulder like a sack of potatoes. "Don't tear my furs on anything you understand, Emma? I aim to sell these at the trade-post."

From his view-point, Jack could see his sister bundled in a fox hide, white enough to match the snow, trailing listlessly behind them. Her eyes were downcast and her cheeks shone with the silvery traces of frozen tears.

"Ah, I don't know how your poor mother's going to take this," the man said as they continued to walk. "With your father already dead and all, and now an idle mouth to feed for the rest of her days…"

They crested the slope of a hill and Jack could see the lake below where they had come from: the large, jagged hole in the middle of it resembled a monster's mouth gaping hungrily after him. Even from this distance, the loud crack of the ice splitting and breaking fired off like rifle in his ears.

He would have said that it was the lake, voicing its anger and displeasure to the forest that it had been deprived of its victim, except… he wasn't crazy…was he?

 

oOo

Jack wished he was back in the lake, back in the frigid water, because everything was _burning._

He drew in several shallow breaths and the air was suffocatingly warm, thick enough to swallow. His head was hot so much though he often imagined he was no more than some small fire sprite dancing in the crackling flames of the fireplace.

There were always shapes hovering over his bed: a woman pressing something damp and blessedly cool to his forehead, a young girl on her knees on the floor holding his limp hand. Silhouettes of people he did not recognize and hushed murmurs he could never quite make out: "near drowned…", "…fever", "…adled in the head." Vile, disgusting-tasting liquid that was forced down his throat, but made the violent tremors go away.

He lost track of time. The sun would stream in through the widow and he would watch the dust gleam in the golden rays. He would shut his eyes and open them to the pale light of the moon spilling onto his pillow and whisper into the night to anyone who might be listening that he hadn't gone mad.

Then the shadows came to prove him wrong.

They came creeping from beneath his bed, thick, black tendrils, coiling and slithering like a nest of snakes, up, up, up his bedpost, curling around the edge of the footboard and Jack could only watch in numb, muted fear as they merged together to solidify into a tall, slim figure of man. A man whose grey-tinged skin and golden glowing eyes were the only features visible amongst the swirling mass of darkness wreathed around him.

Unbidden, one of his temporarily lost memories rushed back to Jack full-force.

" _Boo!" he shouted leaping out from behind the old oak tree in their backyard, making sure to flail the folds of the black robe around widely enough to make it look like he was gliding on air._

_His sister screamed in fright at the dark figure in front of her and dropped the laundry basket she was carrying, scattering the freshly-scrubbed clothes into the dirt._

_He had chased her all the way back to the house where his mother had wrung him by the ear and shook him roughly. "Jackson Overland!" she had yelled. "You do not go about scaring your sister in any way! Especially in Father Goodall's church robe! What on earth did you do to it?" she demanded pointing to the hood he had attached with his meager sewing skills._

_The boys in the village had made fun of him for having learned a "woman's chore". He had really been on his way to frighten the living daylights out of_ them _. His sister had just been an unexpected bonus._

_His mother had made him take every stitch that he had sewn out, then made him re-do the laundry he had soiled. She, herself, had taken the robe back to the village minister and apologized. Jack had been sentenced to a month of chopping firewood for the man, while Father Goodall had sat outside and recited verses of scripture about sinners and hellfire._

_Jack had decided dressing up as Death to scare someone wasn't worth the repercussions and never did it again._

The frantic beating of his heart drumming loudly in his ears snapped him back to the present and made him realize why his mind had decided to remember that all of sudden.

This man in front of him now, this man surrounded by shadows, was he Death coming at last to claim the soul that had escaped his clutches a few days earlier? Was Jack supposed to have died in the lake?

"Oh, my fearlings, I'm afraid this one isn't quite asleep yet," the dark man spoke causing Jack to jump. He hadn't seemed to be addressing him, however, but rather the writhing mass of shadows around him. "A pity, it's so much quicker to taste the fear through a nightmare. Ah well, there other ways."

The man spread his arms out wide and the shadows exploded in a flurry of motion. Jack watched half petrified/half fascinated as the shadows separated back into tendrils and wreaked havoc about the room. They sunk into the floorboards and made them creak noisily. They rattled the windowpane and let the wind in through a crack which caused a ghastly, howling sound. They skittered across the rafters of his roof, spraying straw and timber shards down. They knocked against his headboard with a loud thumping and scratched on the wooden wall of his room something terrible. They kicked up such a ruckus, Jack was amazed no one had come in to check on him.

The dark man was frowning now as one of the tendrils slithered back to him and wrapped itself around him almost apologetically. "Is the child deaf?" the man asked, stroking the shadow as one would do a pet. "He should be screaming bloody murder by now."

"Have you come to kill me, then?" Jack asked hoarsely.

The man appeared startled by his outburst for a few seconds. For one moment, golden eyes bored directly into brown, seeking some unknown answer with a desperate longing before the man broke his gaze and snapped his fingers. The rest of the shadows raced back over to him, encircling him in their dark mass.

"We shall waste no more time here," the man said scornfully. "There are other children in the village to make a meal off of. Ones who are not daft in their heads. Our fear can do nothing if it does not breach the mind."

The words struck a chord of anger deep within Jack. He was tired of people saying he had lost his mind. He had had enough!

"I'm not crazy!" he shouted sitting upright and flinging the covers halfway off him. "I fell through the ice and I got sick, but I'm not crazy!"

In the blink of eye, the man wreathed in shadows was standing next to his bedside, staring down at him and just as quickly, all of Jack's anger and what little courage he had gathered fled from him.

"I will only ask this once," the man said bending over so that his face was scant inches away from Jack's. "Can you hear me, child?"

From this close space, the man's features were defined: a thin, sallow face, high cheekbones, an elongated nose and narrow jaw-line.

Paralyzed in place with fear, Jack could only nod numbly.

His mother liked to tell him and his sister stories. Stories about mythical fairies helping people, and brave warriors off on adventures, and fables that always had a lesson to be taught. There had been one about a wolf and a girl in a red hood…

The man's lips stretched into a sinister smile at his response, showing off two rows of needle-sharp teeth that gleamed as the faintest traces of moonlight reflected off of them.

"Can you see me?"

" _What big teeth you have,"_ that's how he was supposed to answer, wasn't he? But the words died in his throat and Jack could only find the strength to nod his head again.

"Do you know who I am?"

The man's voice was filled with unbridled, unholy glee. The shadows around him were flickering and pulsing excitedly like dark tongues of flame.

"You're Death," Jack whispered, the name falling off his lips like the signal for his own execution.

The man's smile faltered briefly as he paused. The shadows stopped their jubilant, twisting dance to weave to and fro in an uncertain fashion.

"Death," the man said, rolling the word on his tongue as if sampling the flavor.

"Yes. You came for me because I almost drowned in the lake. I think I did for awhile. That's why I can see you," Jack said.

Farmer Pratchett had been struck by lightning the year before. Ever since then, he had claimed he could see angels everywhere.

But this man in front of him now… he was no angel.

"If I am Death," the man spoke slowly. "Are you not afraid of me?"

Jack was pleased to discover he wasn't. That the pure, numb terror he had felt when the man first appeared in his room had all but abated. Now that he knew who he was, there was nothing left except for the awkward unease of first meeting a stranger.

He shook his head. An action which seemed to displease the man. Death's lips curved down into a scowl.

Footsteps pattered lightly on the wooden floorboards leading to just outside his room.

The man's eyes darted to the door as it began opening a crack. "I believe you are mistaken, child," he said crisply, the smile back on his mouth as he turned to look at him again. "I'm not here for _you,_ but there _are_ other occupants of this house, am I correct?"

Anxiety sparked in his chest and dropped to the pit of Jack's stomach. "What do you mean?" he demanded frantically.

"Jack?" a small girl's voice rang out in the silence as his sister poked her head around the door. She often checked on him Jack recalled through his hazy, feverish memories. She checked on him many times in the night as if to comfort herself that he was still breathing. "Jack, are you awake?"

" _Jaaaack,"_ Death crooned softly. "Such a fine, young name for a fine, young man. So healthy, so _alive._ So different from his _sister."_

The man flung out his arm and one of the shadows shot forward and began curling itself around his sister's head like a crown of darkness.

"Leave her alone!" Jack yelled furiously, falling out of bed in haste to reach her.

"Jack?" Emma said nervously, pushing the door open wider. Jack watched as another shadow-tendril slithered by his line of vision and wrapped itself around the girl's ankles.

"Get off her!" he cried, trying to get to his feet, but his whole body felt so weak. "I'm the one who drowned not her! I'm the one who should die, not her!"

Emma was staring wide-eyed at him now, her mouth forming a wordless little 'o' of shock.

The shadows coiled around her abruptly expanded in size. Death gave a lilting laugh and drew in a deep breath of air, as if drinking in some intoxicating scent.

"'m sorry, 'msorry, sorry, sorry, sorry," Emma began to chant, bright tears welling up in her eyes as she backed away from him.

The shadows draped around her knitted together to form a dark shroud, the kind Jack had seen old Mrs. Smyth wear daily to mourn her dead husband. "I shall be buried in it," she had remarked once.

With a howl of rage and burst of energy he didn't know he possessed, Jack leaped up and sprang at her, trying to tear off the shadows that were attached to her head. His hands passed right through them though. He ended up pulling harshly on his sister's hair.

Emma started to scream.

The scorching heat was back inside his head, he was a dying flame that walked free of the fireplace, the room was spinning, someone was shrieking, and _the damn shadows wouldn't go away!_

They taunted him mercilessly, batting at his face, flitting about the floor knowing he couldn't catch them and Death's amused, rumbling laughter rang throughout the room.

"Shut up! Shut up!" Jack cried falling to his knees as the last shreds of strength deserted him. "If you're going to kill me, kill me! Stop torturing us!"

"Oh, but Jack," Death said with pretend-surprise. "That's what I do. It's my job."

There was someone else in his room now. Someone who cupped his face in her soft, gentle hands and wiped the cool sweat from his brow with the hem of her nightgown. Someone who said, "Emma, go get Doctor Brown," and who helped him back into bed and tucked him under the covers.

The room tilted up and down like a see-saw as the shadows played merrily on it. And all the while Death stood and watched him with greedy golden eyes.

The vile liquid was once again forced down Jack's throat and he struggled against it, because he had to save Emma, had to warn her, had to warn his _mother_ , about these shadows, but he was sinking, sinking like before on the lake into dark, murky depths.

"Shhh, Jack, don't fight it, go to sleep," Death crooned coming over and ghosting curved nails over his face. "Come visit me in my realm. We have lots to talk about."

The last thing Jack saw was the moon outside, bathing the man in its pale light. He stretched one hand out towards it, silently begging for something he knew not what, but of course the moon did not answer. Why would it? Besides, he wasn't crazy… was he?

 

_To Be Continued…_


	2. Golden Summer

_Jackson Overland, Age 10 years…_

The sun was blazing overhead and there was not even the slightest wind to stir the golden stalks of wheat in the field. Jack trudged on, wiping the perspiration off his face with his sleeve.

 _Stupid, old nanny goat,_ he thought, tearing a stalk in half viciously and chewing on the end.

It was bad enough he was stuck way out here watching his family's goat-herd on a day as hot as this while the other village children were playing in the lake. But today, the peddler had arrived in Burgess sporting off his collection of odds and ends from all across the country side. Jack had been saving a jar of honey for him, remembering from his visit last year that the man had a sweet tooth. It wasn't much, but he was sure it would gain him _something_ in a trade, no matter how small. Then it would be his chance to brag about to everyone, like the butcher's son who was forever boasting on his silver pocket-knife.

His plans had been foiled from the moment he had woken up this morning. Instead, his father had sent him to mind the goats in his place.

"Your mother could have the baby any time now. I want to be with her," Joseph Overland had said before he had sent his son along the way with a packed lunch in a burlap pouch. "And keep a watchful eye on Prudence. She's near for her kidding time also."

Prudence was the meanest, ugliest, most stubborn goat in their herd. One of Jack's earliest memories was of her chasing him around the yard and head-butting him face-first into the water-trough. She was a bully and she bit. Even the goat-herd's head buck got bossed around and kicked by her.

Jack didn't want anything to do with her. He only hoped she would hold off giving birth until the next day at least. So of course, she was gone when he opened the goat pen and let the herd out to graze on the hillside.

The pen wasn't broken and there were no tunnels dug in the ground. No doubt, she had simply climbed over, swollen belly and all. Goats were remarkable that way. What wasn't remarkable was that Jack had to leave the rest of the herd behind and go off to look for her. Predators usually weren't too keen on attacking a herd full of healthy goats with nasty, cloven feet and wicked, curved horns, but one defenseless and alone having just given birth would be all too easy a meal.

Which was why Jack had been wandering across the hillside and valley for hours in the hot summer heat with no sign of luck. He was tired and too thirsty to sit down and eat his lunch. He was just thinking about giving up and turning back when he the faintest bleat reached his ears.

He followed the sound as best as he could with it echoing all over the rocks on the hills, but finally he stumbled across what he was looking for: a brown-and-white nanny goat on flopped on her side nursing two new-born kids, their white coats still shining wetly.

"Twins!" Jack exclaimed, smiling for the first time that day. "Well, I suppose that was worth all the trouble you gave me. Alright, come on, let's go home."

He took one step forward… and Prudence, knobby-kneed, cross-eyed Prudence was on all fours in an instant and charging towards him, horns lowered.

Jack ended up cornered in a crevice between two rocks for an hour tossing bits of his lunch to her as a peace offering which she turned her nose up at. She would lie back down to nurse her kids, then when he would try and escape without her noticing, she would chase him back into the same spot and bleat angrily, shaking her horns in goat-ish frustration when she couldn't reach him.

He probably would have been there all day if his father hadn't come looking for him.

"Left your staff at home again, Jack," Joseph Overland said as he hooked the curved end around Prudence's neck and yanked her away from his son's hiding place. "How will you ever learn to be a good shepherd if you keep forgetting your staff?"

"I don't want to carry that around! I look stupid!" Jack protested, emerging from the crevice. His father had tied all four of Prudence's legs together with rope so she was no longer an obstacle.

He used to admire his father and his work. He used to want to be just like him when he grew up. The boys in the village had made fun of him the first time he had been seen carrying around the shepherd's staff his father had carved for him one Christmas.

 _"Mary had a little lamb, little lamb, little lamb! Mary had a little lamb whose fleece was white as snow!"_ They would chant laughing as they ran around him in a circle. _"Little Miss Muffet sat on her tuffet eating her curds and whey!_ Hey, where's your bonnet and petticoats, Jackie?"

Jack wasn't sure what he was going to do when he got older, but he would not be a goat-herder for the rest of his life.

"You look far more stupid being cornered by this old numbskull," Joseph declared giving Prudence a sound whack between her eyes that made her cease her mad struggling and lay stunned. "If you spent as much time dedicated learning your duty as you do to daydreaming and plain tom-foolery, you wouldn't worry about what others might think of you." Throwing the nanny goat across his broad shoulders, he stood up. "Now, carry those two kids and let's head home."

Jack gathered up the two new-born kids in his arms irritably. There was no more rope, so he had to carry them like that. They weighed a good few pounds each between them, and it would take an hour at least to get back to the village. Jack's legs were already aching from walking so much this morning. The kids were heavy dead-weights in his arms. It didn't take long for his muscles to give out.

"Just let me sleep here tonight," Jack moaned, stretching out on the ground and pressing his cheek into the dry soil. "I'll be fine."

"And what if the wolves decide you would make a tasty supper?" he heard his father chuckle above his head.

"Leave ole Prudence here," Jack said. "She'll be a sacrifice like in the Bible. They'll eat her and leave a poor skin and bones boy alone."

"Perhaps a rest would be good for a short while," Joseph remarked.

Jack lifted his face off the ground a little. His father was sitting on a tree stump, sweat dripping from his forehead, probably from the heat.

"Did Mother have the baby yet?" Jack asked.

"Nay," Joseph sighed. "She was worrying about you. Said you had been out too long and to go look for you. You're lucky she didn't realize you had left your staff or she'd be doubly as worried and I'd have tanned your hide. Your mother doesn't need that kind of stress right now. It's not good for the baby either."

Jack squirmed a bit feeling guilty for the first time that day. "Do you think the baby will be a boy or a girl?" he asked his father hoping to change the subject.

"No one but the Good Lord knows," Joseph said, a soft smile settling over his weary features. "As long as it's healthy, I'll be happy. What are you wishing for? A brother or a sister?"

"I don't care," Jack said rolling over and letting the new-born kids wobble on unsteady legs over his stomach. One of them licked his chin with its raspy tongue and he giggled at how it tickled. "As long as I have someone to play with."

Joseph frowned. "Are you not getting on well with the other children, Jack?"

"They say our family is strange," Jack admitted staring up into the cloudless blue sky. "Because you and Mother were not born in this village. Because we don't know all their traditions."

"People are mistrustful of outsiders, that's all," Joseph said. "They'll change their views soon enough." He ran a hand over his face. "Ah, do you have any water on you, son?"

"No," Jack said feeling the dryness of his own mouth.

"I'm near parched," Joseph said standing up and adjusting old Prudence on his shoulders, flexing his left arm as he did so. "We're nearly there. We'll take a drink from the well."

"Don't wanna," Jack whined, turning his face back into the dirt.

"Jack, get up," his father said in a warning tone.

"Leave me to diiiiiiiie," Jack groaned not looking forward to walking another step in the harsh, blazing weather while carrying two heavy weights.

"Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. Ephesians 6:1," Joseph Overland recited.

"And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Ephesians 6:4," Jack recited with equal ferocity, not budging an inch.

Joseph burst out in deep, roaring laughter. "Oh, Jack, no wonder the village thinks our family strange if you call them out like this any chance you get! Never do it in front of Father Goodall though. The man would lose what little hair he has left on his head in a fit of righteous indignation!"

Jack felt the corners of his mouth turn up at the mental image. He started when he felt the weight of the two new-born kids vanish off him. He looked up in time to see his father, stuff them down the front of his shirt, until only their heads remained peeking out of collar of his neck.

"Alright, you disobedient, rebellious child. I'll box your ears when we get home. Move," Joseph ordered pointing one finger out in the distance.

Jack scrambled up happily, the threat of a whipping not bothering him at all. His father might change his mind or be too distracted with his mother to remember later. All that mattered right now was that he had no burdens too carry and was gloriously free.

They had to stop and rustle up the rest of the goats out grazing back into the pen before they returned home first. "I am in desperate need of a dog," Joseph remarked before handing the shepherd's staff to Jack. "Here, young pup, go nip at their heels."

Jack streaked through the tall grass whooping and hollering in delight, waving the staff in front of him like a mad man, scaring the very dickens out of the goats no doubt by the way they fled from him with frightened, startled bleating until he had rounded them all up securely into their pen. Once the task was finished, he did several cartwheels and back-flips to celebrate his accomplishment. With a victorious shout, he raised his staff high above his head to the sky imagining it was his sword and he, the king, had just defeated all his enemies.

"I've raised a young heathen, devil take my soul," his father commented at his antics.

They took her Prudence and her kids with them. New-born goats were too fragile to leave in the pen and a nanny goat's milk would be a welcome addition to their family's meals. The sun was setting when they at last cleared the last bit of rocky hillside and came to the valley where Burgess was nestled snugly in.

"Look, Dad, you can see our house from here!" Jack exclaimed excitedly pointing. "Hey, there's a carriage in front of it! It's Doctor Brown's! Mother must be having the baby, hurry!"

He made it half way down the valley slope before he realized his father wasn't following. Rushing back up, he nearly smacked right into him, slouched on his knees at the top of the hill.

"Dad, what's wrong?" he asked, kneeling down in front of him.

His had noticed his father slowing down his pace a third of the way home, but he had thought nothing of it. He was carrying several heavy weights after all. But his father's pale, pinched face and labored breathing alarmed him

"The goats…" his father gritted out through his teeth looking like he was in pain. "Take the goats…"

Jack obeyed wordlessly, unlike earlier, easing Prudence off his father's shoulders and pulling the two new-born kids out of the man's shirt that was soaked with sweat.

"Dad…" he said again in a small voice.

"Too much, too much," Joseph Overland was wheezing more to himself than his son. "Too long… in this heat…" He reached his right arm up that had begun shaking violently and clawed futilely at his shirt. Fabric ripped and buttons popped as he clutched his chest looking as if he wanted to reach in and tear out his own heart.

"Dad? Dad!" Jack shouted, yanking frantically his father's arm. His father who was unresponsive to his cries and whose head lolled side to side at his forceful shakes.

Somewhere, underneath all the blind panic, Jack thought he understood what was happening. He had seen old Mr. Johnson just collapse while walking through the street. "Heart gave out" was what the grown-ups talked amongst themselves. But Mr. Johnson had been nearing his mid-sixties. His father was young and healthy compared to him. So it couldn't be the same thing!

"Dad, what about the baby?" his own screams rang in his ears sounding frightened and lost. "What about Mother? You wanted to be with her! What about _me?!_ Dad, _Dad!"_

His vision blurred, he could only make out the dim outline of the man in front of him, the man to whom all his life had seemed like a giant to him, tall and strong. It had started to rain but the sky was still clear, the new-born kids were bleating to be nursed, and in the house below the wails of a baby drifted up the hillside to join their cries.

And a hand stretched out and brushed the raindrops of his cheek. "Jack…" his name was spoken into the air and he was choking in relief as he buried his head into his father's chest.

Slim, bony fingers slipped down to grip the space between his neck and shoulder painfully. "Is that what happened, Jack?" the voice whispered, soft as cobwebs and dark as shadows.

And he wasn't ten years old, he wasn't really here on this hill, this man in front of him was _not_ his father.

He jerked away from the foreign touch, this _imposter's_ hold, and the image of Joseph Overland's face rippled, wavered, and guttered out, until Death's golden-eyes gaze was staring back at him, his lips stretched back into a needle-like, hooked grin.

"Such tragedy for one so young," Death said, clucking his tongue on the roof of his mouth pityingly. "Tell me, do you blame yourself?"

Jack lunged at him with a strangled screech, the painful wound time had attempted to heal ripped raw and open now.

He passed right through him, through black shadows of mist, and the scenery around him was dissolving like rain pouring down on a painting. He was falling through endless darkness and there was no up or down and Death's taunting voice echoed all around him.

"So many 'what if's' you must have, Jack. 'What if I had taken my staff with me that day'? 'What if we had stopped to take a proper drink in such hot weather'?" Long, slender arms spiraled out of the darkness to wrap themselves around him in a clamp-like grip. Cool lips pressed into the skin under Jack's jaw as Death spoke the cruel truth. "'What if I hadn't been such a needy, whiny, spoiled little boy who made my father carry so many burdens that his heart gave out before he could ever see his wife again or lay eyes on the new baby?'"

"S-stop," Jack stuttered shutting his eyes to halt the tears from leaking out.

"Tell me, Jack, do you think he cursed you in his final moments?" Death asked, dragging spindly fingers through the boy's hair in short, rough strokes. "Do you think he still roams the grounds of home unseen, un-heard, doomed forever to watch his family go on with their lives and yet never be a part of it? What would he say to you for being the cause of his demise if you could meet him now, I wonder?"

An eerie, unearthly moan reverberated in the empty void around them. Jack snapped his eyes open to see a form materialize out of the swirling mass shadows, the form of man looking as if he had crawled his way out of the dirt. Rotting flesh hung in tattered shreds off his decaying body. Two gaping black holes were where his eyes should have been gazed unseeingly straight at him. "Jaaa-aaa-aa," the figure tried to say his name but choked on the bile of worms and maggots that fell from his mouth.

"Stop it!" Jack exclaimed in utter horror, wriggling in vain to break free from Death's embrace. _"Stop it!"_

"Stop what, Jack?" Death murmured curving his mouth into a smile against the boy's throat. "Don't you want to say hello to your father? Or are you afraid of what he might have to say to you?"

"That's not my father!" Jack cried, clinging to the slim line of sanity he had left. "You just want me to believe it is! You're not—you're not…"

" _Is that what happened, Jack?"_ the memory of Death's deception drifted back to him.

"You're not Death!" Jack shouted into the darkness with fierce conviction and the shadows abruptly withdrew a vast distance.

The arms holding him captive squeezed harder as a hand caught the boy's chin in a bruising grip and forced his head up to look backwards into narrowed, golden eyes.

"What makes you say that?" the man asked sharply.

"You would've been there," Jack said as the pieces slowly fell into place. "You would've known what had happened, if it had been _you_ that came for him. So what… _what are you?"_

"Ah, not so stupid after all then."

He was released without warning with a smooth push away that sent him spinning into blackness where he floated in the void waiting for an answer.

"I am the shadows that stalk at night," the man said holding out his arms wide and the darkness rushed to him and draped itself around him like a blanket. "I am the noises under your bed and the monster that lurks outside your door. I am your worst memories relived and the thing that haunts your dreams. I am _Pitch Black!"_

And the darkness rose up and crashed over him like a tidal wave.

 

oOo

Someone was calling his name. Bright light was seeping into the darkness behind his eyelids. Jack cracked his eyes open enough for the blurry form of his mother to slide into focus.

"Wake up, Jack. You were having a nightmare," she whispered as she dabbed a damp cloth across his forehead.

Jack blinked unsure of where he was. "Where are the goats?" he asked feeling the blistering heat of the summer day burn steadily in his skin.

"Goats? Oh, Jack, honey, we sold the herd years ago," his mother sighed, a worry-line creasing the bridge of her nose.

Jack shook his head. "Was bringing back Prudence… and her kids," he tried to explain.

"You're confused, that's all," his mother said soothingly. "You have a fever."

"Fell through the ice…"

"That's right," what sounded like a quickly-stifled sob escaped his mother's lips.

He was making her upset and didn't know why. It took too much effort to think of a reason. Restless, Jack turned his head into his pillow and his cheek prickled uncomfortably. He lifted a hand to brush the sensation away and tiny, black grains of sand fell from between his fingertips and spilled onto the covers. His entire bed was coated with the course substance and he sat up and tried to sweep it off onto the floor because he couldn't go to sleep like this, but his mother caught his hands in her own.

"What are you doing, Jack?" she asked.

"There's sand in my bed," he mumbled. "Black sand, gotta get it off…"

"Jack, honey, there's nothing on your bed," his mother said, running a tender hand across the top of his head. "Here, lie back down."

He allowed her to push him back down gently and lay there stiffly amongst the sea of black sand only he could see. It was scratchy and the sensation irritated his skin, but he dared not mention it lest he cause her any more distress.

"I'm sorry," he mumbled because there was something he needed to apologize for, something buried under the layers of fog swamping his mind.

"Shhh, it's all right," his mother said softly. "You're simply tired, that's all. You'll be better when the fever breaks."

"No… left my staff… I'm sorry," Jack said closing his eyes.

It was raining in his room. Small droplets of water splashed onto his burning forehead and Jack wondered if to die twice by drowning was possible.

 

_To Be Continued..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pitch is a cruel bastard, isn't he? That's a rocky start on the road to friendship, isn't it? Jack's not going to forgive him for that for awhile. Alright, I realize Pitch probably hasn't learned to manipulate the dream sand into nightmares just yet in this time period. I'm taking artistic license with this. This story might be a little AU-ish.
> 
> I enjoyed exploring my headcanon for Jack's backstory. I got to wondering about his staff. He was carrying it around when he was human. It's not a regular walking staff that villagers might take for treks through the woods. It's very distinctly a shepherd's staff with a crooked end. I figured his family must have a herd of some kind. I chose goats instead of sheep because Burgess is settled over uneven terrain and would be more suitable grazing land for goats. Plus, sheep are more expensive to own and take care of. Goats can manage for themselves pretty well. I got the feeling Jack's father wasn't around anymore while watching the movie, so I let my muse fly free on this. It was heatstroke that brought on the heart attack if you must know. Sorry if I ruined anyone's lives or feelings as they read this chapter. Wait, no I'm not, hehe.


	3. With Devils to Eternity

Jack could hear them talking as he lay in his bed even as they tried their best to keep their voices low.  The Overland house was built pretty much like every other log cabin in Burgess, sturdy but small. The fireplace in the main room served to heat the interior as well as cook their meals. There were two small bedrooms off to the side: one for the adults and the other for any children they might have. Jack remembered he used to share the same room with Emma when they were both younger, but ever since he that fateful day on the ice, his sister had taken to sleeping with their mother.

It had been two weeks since then, one week of which had passed in nothing but a blur of heat and fuzzy memories. He was all but convinced that he had conjured the man wreathed in shadows from the depths of his feverish mind for no nightmares had plagued him since that first night of his plunge through the ice. No shadows came creeping from beneath his bed nor was there any black sand scattered on his sheets to greet him upon waking.

Yes, it had all been a figment of his imagination. There was naught to blame for these vivid hallucinations except for the fever that had wracked his body so viciously. The fever that once it had finally broken, had left him tired and weak.

His mother had kept his fingers busy the second week as he was still bed-ridden. She had given him scraps of fabric and patterns to cut out. The village tailor had taken Lydia Overland as his assistant after she had been widowed. It had caused quite a stir amongst the townspeople, however their chatter ceased when it became known that Tailor Saunders’ eyesight was failing and his true intentions were to make Jack his apprentice. Lydia had attempted her best to pass her seamstress skills to her son, but Jack was dismal at sewing. He often thought Tailor Saunders an old fool for thinking he could ever take up the trade. His stitches always came out as crisscrossed and uneven with wide gaps in-between. He managed fairly well with a pair of scissors though.

“He’s fine,” he heard his mother say to the doctor. “I don’t know what stories Thomas Grymes has prattled off his lying tongue, but he’s perfectly fine. I’ve quizzed him on the Primer and he can recite the alphabet and catechisms just fine. As for his maths, he’s no worse off than he was before the fever took hold of him. ‘Adled in the head, indeed’!”

“If no sickness ails him now and he is recovered well enough to walk, he needs to be seen about by others,” Doctor Brown said. “It will stop this foolish rumor-mongering then. It would do the boy some good to get a bit of fresh air.”

A distinct noise of disapproval was his mother’s response.

“Are you planning to keep him cooped up here forever? You can try and shelter your loved ones as much as you want, but accidents happen. That’s the way of the world. All you can really do is guide them as best you can so they learn from their mistakes.”

Silence lingered after the last statement and Jack knew the doctor had won.

oOo

The frozen snow crunched underneath his boots as he trudged along the road. The air was brisk and cold, but Jack did not feel the sharp bite of winter. His mother had bundled him up in so many layers, his walking gait was similar to that of the inn-keeper’s tabby cat one time it had fallen into the ale-barrel.

“I don’t want you falling ill in such a manner again,” his mother had remarked at his resentful gaze before his departure, sending his sister along with him. They were taking Mr. William’s his new wool coat, wrapped and packaged neatly.

Jack glanced down at Emma who kept pace beside him despite his longer stride. Her two small mitten-covered hands were wrapped about his own right one. She was biting her lower lip as she stared straight ahead never meeting his eyes. She hadn’t spoken to him since that night his fever had driven him half-mad. He had probably frightened her. He should apologize…

“Jack lad, what’s this?” a loud, booming voice called out suddenly. “Out so soon already? You must have caused your mother no end of grief for her to turn you lose this early!”

Jack lifted his head. Trapper Grymes stood a few feet ahead, his large burly frame blocking the narrow path. Snowflakes drifting down from the overcast sky were quickly melted in the man’s scruffy beard.

“No words to greet your fellow wanderer this fine day?” Trapper Grymes bellowed as he marched over. “Tell me, girl,” he said turning to Emma. “Has he lost his tongue as well as his wits?”

Jack felt his sister’s hands clench tightly about his own, saw her swallow back a deep gulp of air and the brimming of unshed tears well up in her eyes.

“I am not ‘adled in the head’,” Jack spat out curtly. “Mother would like for you to stop such sayings.”

“Well, I’ll be bowled over, the boy speaks!” Trapper Grymes exclaimed, clutching his rounded belly and guffawing heartily. “If you can talk, Jack lad, how about sparing a few words of appreciation for your rescuer, eh? You’d be sleeping in a watery coffin right now if I hadn’t happened by.”

A muffled whimper escaped Emma’s lips and Jack had to restrain himself from punching the man right in his bulbous, bright red nose.

“Thank you, _kind_ sir,” he forced out through gritted teeth. “I am truly grateful.”

“Aye, aye, that’s more like it,” Trapper Grymes nodded mollified. “You’re the man of the house now, Jack lad, remember. You should always think twice before you do anything and not act on rash impulse.”

Jack felt his anger abate abruptly. Patronizing as the man was, he was right. He should have known better than to take his sister ice skating when it was too early in winter for the water to completely freeze over. He had fallen prey to the lake’s deceptive appearance. What would have happened if he had died? His mother and sister would have been devastated.

“Ah, well, _‘My heart shall chear me in my youth, I'l1 have my frolicks in good truth, what e'er seems lovely in mine eye, myself I cannot it deny.’_ Right, Jack lad?” Trapper Grymes recited, tousling the boy’s hair as he turned to go.

“Wait,” Jack said catching the man’s sleeve. “My staff.”

“Come again?”

“My staff,” Jack repeated, an urgency rising within him that was close to panicking. “Where is my staff?”

He had asked his mother the same question before he and his sister had left home. It had become an old habit to simply extend his hand and snatch it up where he always placed it, resting by the doorframe, before stepping foot outside. But it hadn’t been there today. Two weeks in bed and there had been no need for him to think of it. There really was no need for him to make any use of it all now that his family had no more goats to shepherd.

But sometimes, when things were tough, on particularly bad days, Jack would look at his staff and see in his memory Joseph Overland’s large hands, wrinkled with calluses, carefully carving the crooked end out of the wood… and sometimes… sometimes that would be enough to lift his spirits in the worst of moods.

“That shepherd’s staff that’s like a third arm of yours? Must still be back at the lake. Oh, steady on,” Trapper Grymes said at Jack’s crestfallen expression. “It’s probably wherever you last laid it. There’s naught been a soul that has gone down to the lake since your near-drowning. Father Goodall forbid it. Wait a couple of more weeks for the ice to freeze over and someone will fetch it for you. Patience is a virtue, Jack.”

oOo

When they last arrived at the Williams residence, the snow had started to fall much faster. He and Emma were ushered in and told to stand in front of the fireplace. The warmth of the flames melted the crusted snowflakes off their clothes where they dripped in little puddles on the floor.

Mrs. Williams bustled around the place clucking like a mother hen, the packaged coat for her husband put aside. “Oh, Jack, it’s so good to see you out and about again! You had us all worried, you little imp. Here,” the woman said dropping one hard maple candy each into Jack and Emma’s hands. “Suck on these while I boil some apple cider for you two. It will help to have something warm inside on your way home in this weather!”

The door to the side-room opened wide enough for two blonde-haired children to peer around it at their visitors.

“Jack! Jack! Jack and Emma!” they shouted enthusiastically as they barreled over to them.

Pushing the maple candy over to one side of his cheek, Jack smiled lopsidedly at the sight of Emma’s two friends. Abigail Williams at nine years old was a year older than Emma, while her brother, Caleb was the same age. The three of them combined sometimes made for a “Terrible Trio” his mother often jokingly remarked, but really they were sweet and fairly obedient children. Jack knew the worst thing they had ever done was steal some pies cooling out of Baker Hopkins’ window. Jack knew because he had put them up to it and had a good laugh at their expense when he had stumbled across them later on. They all had developed stomach aches from stuffing their greedy faces and were bawling their eyes out certain that God was punishing them for sins.

“Jack, you’re not dead!” Caleb cried flinging his arms around the older boy’s waist.

“Of course he’s not dead, child!” Mrs. Williams declared exasperated. “He’s right there!”

“And you haven’t gone willy-nilly, stark-raving mad?” Abigail piped up.

 _“Abigail!”_ her mother exclaimed properly scandalized.

“What? That’s what Anthony Hawkins said he’d gone and done. Said Jack was born under a full moon and his falling through the ice was how the devil tried to claim his soul back!”

“That’s quite enough, young lady!” Mrs. Williams ordered. “Anthony Hawkins spreads the most fantastic yarns—you should be spanked for believing such a ridiculous fib! You children have such wild imaginations, I must say. First Caleb and his monsters, now this!”

“Monsters?” Jack asked looking down at Caleb curiously.

“The ones that live under my bed,” the boy said solemnly. “They come out at night in the shadows.”

_They came creeping from beneath his bed, thick, black tendrils, coiling and slithering like a nest of snakes..._

Jack started violently at the memory. No, no, that had been a bad dream brought on by the fever. That hadn’t been real.

“You’ve been having nightmares, Caleb, that’s all,” Mrs. Williams told her son. “Then you wake up still frightened and every little noise makes you jump, but it’s nothing but the wind outside making the house creak.”

oOo

_"I am the shadows that stalk at night. I am the noises under your bed and the monster that lurks outside your door. I am your worst memories relived and the thing that haunts your dreams.”_

oOo

“Caleb,” Jack said slowly. “Did you ever… see what the monsters looked like?”

  _… they merged together to solidify into a tall, slim figure of man. A man whose grey-tinged skin and golden glowing eyes were the only features visible amongst the swirling mass of darkness wreathed around him._

Caleb shook his head swiftly. “No, but I know they’re there! I can _feel_ them! One night they’ll come when I’m not awake and eat me whole!”

“Now that’s quite enough!” Mrs. Williams proclaimed in stern tone as she poured the steaming apple cider into the cups laid out on the table. “I will hear no more talk of any nonsense whatsoever in this house today. Landsakes!” she sighed dabbing at her forehead with her handkerchief . “I’ll age ten years listening to such idle prattle if I allow you to carry on!”

More maple candy was handed out. Emma and the other younger children had settled themselves on the floor in front of the fire while they sipped their cider and Jack found himself looking out the window to the late afternoon sky and internally wrestling with himself over an impulse that would make his mother lock him in his room for even contemplating such an irrational thought.

Yet he was putting down his cup now and taking one final look at his sister’s face which at last had a smile on it as she chattered happily with her friends. He was bidding Mrs. Williams thank you for her hospitality, but he had someplace to go, one last errand to do before he went home. He was requesting she not tell Emma until after he had already gone. Then he was opening the door and setting out, and thinking there was a distinct possibility of him being as willy-nilly, stark-raving mad as Anthony Hawkins claimed he was. Why else would he be returning to the place that had almost stolen the last bit of breath from his lungs and claimed his life?

oOo

The sun was already dipping on the horizon when Jack left. The blue shades of twilight were extending their fingers and erasing all traces of gold in the sky announcing night’s arrival. The temperature had dropped but at least it had stopped snowing. He hastened through the bunch of houses that made up the middle of Burgess ignoring greetings that were shouted his way. The lake wasn’t too far from the village. There was a small patch of woods that lay before it, but if he hurried, he thought he could make there and back home before nightfall without anyone being the wiser of where he had gone.

The wind had picked up and blew in his face freezing gusts of wind that numbed his cheeks. He had to take ankle-deep steps in the cold, white ground that had risen a couple of more inches due to the snowfall earlier. His legs were soon chilled but he pressed on.

He tried not to dwell too much on what he was doing because he knew it was madness. It was only the sight of the lake coming into view that made his breath catch in his throat and his heartbeat quicken.

The hole where he had fallen through had frozen back over. The surface appeared smooth and as seamless as a mirror reflecting the orange-gold rays of the setting sun. It shimmered so brightly, the entire lake looked as if it had caught fire: a beautiful and deadly portrait.

The sharp sound of the ice cracking split the air and Jack almost fell over backwards. What was he doing? What was he _thinking?_ The ice was still too thin—it was warning him even now to turn back. He nearly did. Then his eyes landed on the slim piece of wood lying in the center of the lake.

oOo

_“Merry Christmas, Jack,” Joseph Overland said as he presented the finished staff out to his son’s outstretched hands._

_“Mother, mother, look! I have a staff now!” Jack shouted waving it about wildly. “I’ll be a good a shepherd as father!”_

_“Now, Jack,” his father said taking him by the shoulders. “It’s not just any ordinary walking staff. It’s a weapon. You use it to defend what’s important to you, and if needs be yourself also. Keep it close to you always, son.”_

_“I promise, Father.”_

oOo

His heartbeat had lessened its frantic thumping and the growing lump at the back of his throat slowly dissolved. He was scared, but he tried to figure out a sensible approach to his predicament. Perhaps… perhaps, he wouldn’t have to walk all the way out to the middle to get his staff. Perhaps if he found a branch long enough, he could extend his reach and drag it towards him onto thicker ice. Yes, that would work!

Picking up a fallen limb off the ground, slender enough to lift with ease and suitable in size in length, he moved forward slowly until he reached the edge of the bank. The sun had disappeared between the hills, taking its radiance with it. The frozen lake was on fire no longer. The moon hung low in the sky shedding down its pale light disapprovingly.

Jack took a deep breath to calm himself and took one step forward…

Something snagged him by the ankle and yanked him backwards sharply before the bottom of heel could make contact with the ice.

Thick, black tendrils, the same as those from his fevered dreams leaped of the shadows of the trees around him, coiled around his wrists and ankles and bound him place tightly like a fly caught fast in a spider’s web.

 _“Stupid, fool of a child!”_ a voice rang out in the darkness, pierce and venomous.

The shadows parted and the man from his nightmares emerged from them like a black mist, an expression of great fury darkening his face.

“Is this what you mortals do the minute you are recovered from some terrible ailment?” the man demanded issuing one hand out to the lake. “Return and do exactly what near killed you before? No wonder you do not last long on this earth!”

Jack could only stare wide-eyed and speechless at him. Because he wasn’t real, _wasn’t real._

“Nothing to say, Jack?” the man asked, his golden eyes boring into Jack’s own, accusing and condemning. “The last two times we talked, you were forever screaming at me.” A cold, cruel smile broke out across his lips. “I think I liked that better…”

“Who—who are you?” Jack choked out.

The man began to circle him, disappearing out of his peripheral vision. Jack saw nothing but the vast expanse of shadows before him, then cool, slim fingers curved about his neck and a chill tingled down his spine as someone whispered silkily in his ear, _“You already know.”_

The villain in the adventure stories his mother told, the evil creature in the fairy tales, and the monster in the fables that served as a warning to all the children: _don’t be naughty or he’ll come get you._

“The Boogey Man,” Jack said hoarsely.

The fingers retreated from his neck. The man slid back out of the shadows to stand in front of him. “Yes, I do believe that’s one of the names I’ve collected over a millennia,” he spoke rather bored. “I meant the other name I have graciously bequeathed to you.”

“Pitch Black.”

Pitch assessed him with a calculating gaze, his golden eyes gliding over every part of him. “Only a very few know it. That makes you quite special indeed.”

“What do you want with me?” Jack asked, testing the bonds of the shadows that imprisoned him but they held firm.

“Ah, ah, ah,” Pitch _tsk-_ ed, waving a finger and tapping the tip of Jack’s nose lightly. “That would be telling. Suffice it to say, your existence suits my purpose.”

“Are you the one that’s been frightening Caleb?” Jack pressed.

“I frighten many children,” Pitch shrugged carelessly. “I do not usually make it a hobby to learn their names. They’re simply fodder for my fearlings to feast upon.”

Around him, the dark tongues of tendrils were flickering out of the shadows as if agreeing.

“So that’s it then?” Jack said, glimpsing an answer amongst the chaos. “You scare children and live off their fear? That’s what keeps you… alive,” he finished for lack of a better word. Though he hardly thought anyone that could appear and disappear out of thin air like smoke was fully alive.

Pitch wide, toothy grin nearly split his face in two. “Perhaps,” he said loftily. “Perhaps I do it for _fun._ Their screams are so _delicious.”_

“I’m not afraid of you,” Jack proclaimed boldly, hoping he sounded more confident than he was feeling. True, the fact that mere shadows could shackle him so easily, that this dark man not of this world could control them and invade his mind at any given moment and unleash countless horrors unnerved him greatly, but he realized he felt a lot more calmer with the knowledge that all this _could_ happen. He would not be caught unawares and vulnerable next time. He would be prepared for any assault.

Pitch threw his head back and laughed. The sound washed over Jack in shivering waves of malevolent glee. “Oh, Jack,” Pitch cackled maniacally. “I can tell when a person is lying. Even if you weren’t, there are _always_ ways to draw out fear.”

The humor was wiped off the man’s face as swiftly as it had come as he glanced towards the lake.

“No!” Jack shouted frantically, the man’s intentions dawning on him a second too late.

The shadows sped across the frozen surface and enveloped his staff into the folds of their darkness where it vanished and reappeared in Pitch’s hand in a cloud of black mist.

“Is _this_ what you were endangering your life for tonight?” Pitch demanded brandishing the staff in Jack’s face, his golden eyes gleaming in malice. “A piece of _wood?_ Such senseless, reckless idiocy!” His mouth set in a firm line as he trailed light fingertips over the staff as if weighing his options. “I can’t have you wandering off into dire peril every time you mislay this. Humans are so pathetically fragile after all: a bump on the head, a wrong fall, choking on a bit of nourishment even, and they die—just like _that,”_ he sneered, snapping his fingers.

“Please…” Jack breathed, his voice hitching slightly in his chest. “Please don’t break it.”

He expected the man to snap it in half at any moment’s notice. He could only watch helplessly as the shadows around him rippled in anticipation at their master’s decision.

Jack let out a small yelp of surprise as the dark tendrils coiled about him abruptly released their grip and dropped him to his feet in the snow.  The staff was shoved roughly against his chest and he staggered backwards, gripping it out of reflex.

An arm snagged around his waist and long fingers curled into his hair and yanked his head back harshly. “Consider this a gift, Jack,” Pitch’s voice wormed its way into his ear in a flat, cold undertone. “I’ll let you keep your precious staff as long as you realize I hold the power to destroy it if I ever see you placing its value above your own life again, understand?”

A pained grunt of agreement was all that Jack could manage. The harsh fingers in his hair loosened their grip slightly and petted the top of his head gently as a human would do a skittish cat. “Oh, my dear boy,” Pitch chuckled amused. “You have no idea the sheer amount of pleasure your existence has bestowed upon me.” The hand around his waist moved up to brush his cheek affectionately. “With you, I shall accomplish great things.”

Jack bit down on his tongue to refrain himself from asking why he was so important to the man. He knew it would only bring more riddles from him, this dark figure who enjoyed playing with people’s minds and preying on the slightest bit of uncertainty and doubt, because from those emotions spawned fear.

A hand pressed into the space of his back and shoved him away. Jack stumbled a couple of steps forward before looking behind his shoulder fully expecting the man to have vanished in the beat of a heart as he was prone to do. But Pitch Black was still there watching him with a blank expression, standing in the midst of the shadows that were furling and unfurling like a giant black sail in the wind.

“Hurry home, Jack,” Pitch spoke softly, his voice oddly somber. “And don’t take any life-endangering detours along the way or your sister will pay the price of your irresponsibility.”

Only then did Jack run: through the bushes, between the trees, and over rocks until he found himself on the worn, beaten path trodden heavy by footprints in the snow that led to Burgess.

He knew this would not be the last he saw of Pitch Black. That his nightmare was only just now beginning.

_To Be Continued…_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it took so long for this chapter to come out! I was doing research on early colonial life: the food, the schooling, the trades of work, the common names of people. I just want to be historically accurate as possible. From what I can figure out, the village of Burgess is probably made up of Puritans and the year is roughly 1712. Either way, the children in those times would have been taught out of the New England Primer. Thomas Grymes was reciting a couple of lines students had to memorize that were a conversation between Christ, Youth and the Devil. It’s very morbid if you read the whole thing. In fact the title of this chapter is the last line spoken by Death when he finally comes to take the Youth. Here’s the whole stanza:
> 
> Youth, I am come to fetch thy breath,  
> And carry thee to th' shades of death,  
> No pity on thee can I show,  
> Thou has thy God offended so.  
> Thy soul and body I'll divide,  
> Thy body in the grave I'll hide,  
> And thy dear soul in hell must lie,  
> With Devils to eternity. 
> 
> The New England Primer is really fascinating to read. It has the alphabet composed of two-lined rhymes that drives a point home. Basically, it teaches children their consonants and vowels and grammar as well as biblical catechisms, hymns and poetry. Look it up online. I couldn’t find an earlier version than 1777, but Wikipedia said there wasn’t much change between editions. 
> 
> Also, it seems that the boys who made fun of Jack’s ability to sew are in for a shock in the future. It seems it was required for boys to know how to sew in colonial times. Blacksmiths used a needle to make bellows, shoemakers and saddle makers used a needle to make shoes and saddles; enlisted men in the military had to maintain their uniforms. Ohoho, Jack’s ahead of the game, chaps! 
> 
> If anyone’s interested, yes, those two blonde children are the ones we see in Jack’s memory with his sister. I know the boy has brown hair when he was smaller, but children’s hair do change colors as they age. In Pitch’s flashback to the past, we see the backs of a couple holding hands which I am certain is a grown up Emma and her blond-haired husband. They even have kids who run straight through Pitch! Ah, these headcanons hurt my head.
> 
> One more thing before I go, I chose Emma as Jack’s sister’s name because that is what the fandom has decided to call her (at least on tumblr). Pippa is Jamie’s friend, the girl in green. If you read the movie novelization, it has her named as such. Also, Dreamworks has answered an email and said Jack’s sister had no official name in the script, her voice actor just took on two roles. As for Jack’s mother, I chose the name, Lydia, because Puritans often had biblical names and Lydia in the New Testament was a women who made a business off of selling purple-dye and known for offering hospitality to Paul and his followers. It is thought she was either never married or a widow since she did not ask her husband’s consent to invite them first. Either way, I named Jack’s mother after her because she would have to be strong after her husband died and learn another work-trade to make a living without him. 
> 
> No you all know why it took so long for this chapter to come out now! Background gathering on information is a killer!


	4. Sweet Dreams

Jack ran and all around him the shadows seem to loom everywhere. They were the dark shapes lurking behind the trees and the clouds that covered the moon, and blotted out the stars in the sky. They were his relentless pursuers that nipped at his heels, slapped in his face and tugged at his clothes as he raced down the snow-covered path. He didn't stop running, not even when he reached the village square of Burgess and the weak light of candles shining through the windows chased away any dark corners where shadows might linger. He tripped once and crashed into someone leaving the tavern, but he pushed them away with not even an apology as he turned and continued on his mad race. He felt no relief until he had flung wide the door to his house and latched himself inside. Only then was he able to breathe easy and feel safe.

"Jack!" came a cry then his mother was upon him, petting his face and combing the bits of snow and frost out of his hair as she fussed worriedly. "Jack, where have you been? When Emma came home without you I near died of fright! I—"

Jack shifted his weight nervously as his mother stopped short and stared at the staff in her son's hands.

"Oh, Jack," Lydia breathed out in dismay, cupping one hand over her mouth. "Jack, tell me you didn't go down to the lake to get that."

"I…" was all Jack could say, his fingers gripping the staff tightly lest his mother try and tear it away from him.

But Lydia Overland did no such thing, only backed away from him shaking her head in disbelief. "You went back to the lake…" her voice cracked on the last word as she turned away quickly but not before the wetness in her eyes was caught by the gleam of the fire.

"Mother," Jack said softly, trying to explain. "I had to. Father—"

"Your father is dead," Lydia stated bluntly, cutting him off. "All I have left of him is you and your sister. I nearly lost you two weeks ago, and now you have gone back there all for the sake of some _staff."_

She stood there with her back to him staring at the fireplace where the flames crackled and danced, making the shadows leap about on the walls. Jack shivered at the sight. He could not escape them even in his own home.

"Is Thomas Grymes right?" his mother asked quietly, more to herself than her son. "Have you gone mad?"

"Mother, mother, I haven't," Jack said hurrying over to lay a hand on her shoulder.

Lydia pulled away from his touch. "Then what am I to do? What am I to think?" she asked, turning to face him with an expression of tightly-reigned anger. "I bid you to go out and deliver Mr. William's coat and come straight home. You left your sister and went off who knows where. I thought perhaps you were simply exploring on the hills; that you were tired of staying indoors for so long. The thought of you returning to that lake never even—" she broke off for a moment visibly distressed, before continuing, her tone cool and firm. "It doesn't matter where you went, Jack. You disobeyed me."

"Yes, ma'am," Jack said lowering his head shame.

"Then you know what I must do," Lydia said, taking the broom into her hands.

"Yes, ma'am," Jack said, resting his staff in the corner and bracing his hands against the table without a word of protest, readying himself for the first blow of a thrashing that never came.

There was a dull clatter as the broom was dropped to the floor. Jack turned in time to see his mother collapse into the rocking chair that rested by the fireplace. Burying her face into her hands, Lydia Overland wept. The sound of her broken sobs echoed around the cabin accusingly.

Guilt blossomed in Jack's chest. He had given his mother cause for grief again. He moved forward to comfort her, the wooden floorboards creaking with his approach.

"I wish… your father was here," breathed the hushed confession that fell from his mother's lips.

Jack stopped in place abruptly. Lydia's sobs died down quickly. She seemed to have forgotten his presence entirely as she stared into the fireplace, her red-rimmed eyes matching the colors of the flames. All was quiet except for the dull pounding of his heartbeat resonating in his ears.

No further words were spoken. Jack went to his room at her silent dismissal. Emma wasn't there, of course. She was probably sleeping in their mother's bed again. He probably had made her worry too tonight. He wanted to talk to her. He realized she hadn't said one word to him all day—not one word to him _at all_ really since that feverish night weeks ago. He wanted to apologize for his behavior, wanted to tell her he didn't blame her for nearly drowning. But he was too tired, too haunted by his encounter with the Boogeyman still… and he did not want to go out of his room and face his mother again.

He thought it might be difficult to fall asleep now that he knew Pitch Black could be skulking in the nearest shadow, yet he found himself drifting swiftly into slumber the minute his head touched his pillow. His last thought before he lost consciousness was that he hoped he would be spared from nightmares in the night.

 

oOo

His mother had forgiven him for his disobedience the next morning if the raisins in his porridge were a sign to go by. He even had a side dish of butter to go with it. Lydia's gentle hands combed through his hair, trying to flatten down the most unruly parts. Jack caught a glimpse of a wistful smile on his mother's face before she gave up her futile effort, and he wondered if perhaps breakfast was her way of apologizing for herself last night also.

"I need you to go fetch some meat from the butcher for supper later," Lydia told him. "Our supply has run out."

Forget savoring every mouthful, the delightful breakfast had just turned sour in Jack's mouth, but he held back the complaint that was on the tip of his tongue. His mother knew he and the butcher's son didn't along. He knew she wouldn't have sent him instead if she were able to go herself.

"The governor's wife wants her gown before the fortnight," Lydia explained. "If I devote enough hours, I should be able to finish it in time."

Rebekah Hamilton, the governor's wife was a pleasant-mannered woman if a bit vain, always throwing glamorous and lavish parties as often as she could. No one had ever seen her wear the same dress twice. She ordered the material from England and as soon as the new shipment arrived, she sent it off to Lydia to design and fashion. She paid well however. If this gown was finished in time the Overland family would have enough money to be sure that their meat and food supplies lasted throughout the winter.

"Jack," Lydia said, biting the corner of her mouth, an anxious habit he remembered his father teasing her about. "Jack, please don't go anywhere else except the butcher's."

"I won't," he promised and this time he vowed to keep it. It was his own fault for plunging straight into danger yesterday that had drawn out Pitch Black. He had no desire for a repeat performance today.

The door to the cabin opened, letting in a wintry breeze as Emma trudged inside bundled in her coat and boots. Her face was bright pink from the cold and she was carrying the basket of eggs she had gathered from the three hens the family possessed. Their family never ate the eggs themselves. They traded them amongst the other villagers for other things: a candle, a bar of lye soap, and vegetables from people's gardens. Most folks owned their own chickens and didn't even need the extra eggs, but they still helped out those who were less fortunate. That was how the village of Burgess worked.

Jack tried to catch Emma's eye, but his sister refused to meet his gaze, fidgeting listlessly on one foot to the other much like a nervous chick herself as she gulped down two of their mother's cornmeal biscuits.

"It's still early yet," Lydia commented glancing at the morning sky through the window. "Mayhap if you go now, young Anthony Hawkins will still be out chopping wood."

Jack beamed a grateful smile and excused himself from the table. Donning his cloak about his shoulders in an instant, he reached for his staff where he had left it the night before and felt a swooping sensation in his stomach as his fingers closed around the wood. He was happy to feel the familiar weight of it in his hand again.

"Be quick, Jack," his mother said. She had cleared the dishes from the table and was busy spreading out patterns and fabric over the surface. "You can help me when you get back. Four hands are better than two."

Jack grimaced, not fooled at all by her merry tone. "You're going to make me pose as the pin-up model again, aren't you?" he asked.

Lydia giggled in a very school girl-ish and un-motherly manner. "Well, it can't be helped that you and Mrs. Hamilton share the same figure. You're both thin as a beanpole with narrow hips, all skin and bones."

"Aye, Goodwife Hodges says she'll never bear children with hips as small as that," Jack remarked, leaning slightly on his staff.

"Off with you now," his mother shooed him as she pulled out her sewing box. "And don't go repeating such scandalous gossip unless you want Father Goodall to get wind of it. He'll tan your hide with a willow switch."

Jack wrinkled his nose at the thought and turned to go. For single second, his eyes finally managed to meet those of his sister's. Emma's startled gaze clashed with his before she bolted for the door, throwing it open and dashing off into the snow outside still carrying the basket of eggs in her hands.

Jack wasn't sure if she was angry, upset or frightened of him or all three and not knowing made it worse.

 

oOo

They sky was clear and blue and the sun was shining brightly. The village of Burgess lay nestled at the foot of a forest and the path to the butcher's was wreathed with trees on either side. It was a perfect recipe for shadows.

Jack hurried as quickly as he could, trying to squash the panic slowly starting to rise within him. He half-expected Pitch Black to pop out anywhere at any moment, and this time he couldn't dismiss him as a half-forgotten imagining of a feverish dream. Last night had been very real. He had been wide awake. He had held a conversation with him—he had _talked_ to the Boogeyman. Just thinking about it was enough to make him question his own sanity. So Jack tried not to, tried to dwell on other things like Christmas coming up at the end of the month and what gifts he should make for his mother and sister, anything, any thought except for that of a tall grey-skinned man with golden eyes and who held power over shadows and your deepest fears.

He reached the butcher's in record time with no fateful encounter to mention, however, there his luck ran dry: for it wasn't the butcher who sat in the stall outside his shop. It was his son, Anthony Hawkins.

Thinking back, Jack never could pinpoint the exact reason why he and Anthony Hawkins never got along. It just always had been that way from his earliest memory. Perhaps it had not been one thing in particular. Perhaps Anthony Hawkins was just a born bully, for all his childhood and adolescent years, tormenting the other village children had been his specialty. From name-calling, to fist-fights, to setting frogs lose in the church, Anthony Hawkins was quite usually the culprit. Of course, being the butcher's son did have its advantages and more often than not, did anyone ever rarely catch him in the act of such things. So when suspicion did fall upon him, Anthony Hawkins was quite comfortable in pointing the blame onto someone else. That someone was usually Jack. The fact that people were all too willing to believe the son of one of the most wealthy citizens in Burgess over a fatherless boy whose future was to become the town tailor made Jack angry to no end, but that's the way things worked. Sometimes he wondered if that was why he pulled so many pranks and tried his hardest to make the other children laugh. If he was already labeled as the town's miscreant trickster, he might as well live up to the name.

Anthony wasn't alone. His two partners in crime since boyhood, Henry Pratchett and Nathaniel Jones were there as well, as if they had nothing better to do than to loiter idly beside the butcher's stall like two loutish body guards. Never mind that Henry was the tavern-keeper's son and Nathaniel was apprenticed to the black smith and they both had daily chores to tend to. News of his wandering about the village yesterday must have spread fast. It wouldn't be too difficult to guess he'd make an appearance at the butcher's sooner or later. It was a necessity for everyone.

Jack sighed and put on a false smile. Well, better get this over with then.

"Mornin', Anthony," he greeted in what he hoped sounded like a congenial tone. "Where's your father?"

"In bed. Sick," Anthony answered. Cocking his head of unruly red curls to one side, he stretched back his lips to reveal a smug, gap-toothed grin. "I wouldn't go in to see him, it might be catching. Don't want to fall ill again so soon, aye, Jack? This time your wits might be taken for good."

Jack's smile never wavered. "I never lost them in the first place. I got took by fever, that's all."

"Oh, I don't think that's all," Anthony said in a very braggartly manner. "Oi, Nathaniel, what would you do if you were caught in a fire and nearly burned to death, yet you survived?"

"I think I'd be extra cautious around anything that makes a fire for the rest of my life," Nathaniel replied in a curt and well-versed tone, as if it was a line he had rehearsed many a time.

"Mmm, you certainly wouldn't go dashing off into a blazing forest fire, now would you?" Anthony said drilling his gaze into Jack's to drive home the point. "I mean it would be an utterly, _foolish_ thing to do, now wouldn't it, going back to something that near killed you in the first place?"

Jack's hand clenched about his staff involuntarily: an action that didn't go by unnoticed.

"It's no use denying it. It's right there in your hand," Anthony gestured to it. "Henry saw you coming back from the lake's path last night. You crashed right into him and took off without a word."

"Had a wild-eyed, haunted expression on him," Henry supplied helpfully. "Looked quite mad to me."

"Are you selling meat or just tall tales?" Jack demanded, trying to change the subject, and wishing he had been more careful going home the night before.

"Did you really go back to the lake just for that staff? Does it mean that much to you?" Anthony asked. His tone sounded so genuinely curious, it fooled Jack for a moment. Then the mask slipped and the wily fox-grin had snapped back onto the boy's face once more. "What'd you trade to get it back? Can't have been your soul. You gave that up last time so you wouldn't drown."

"You honestly believe your own story you made-up to frighten little kids?" Jack laughed, trying to make light of the situation. Inside he was seething. He resisted the urge to bring his staff across the boy's face with a sound smack.

"Go on, Jack, tell us," Anthony urged him on. Both his hands were placed on the carving table now as he leaned forward with obvious excitement, looking like someone who was straining to hear the secret that their friend was about to share. "Father Goodall isn't here. What does the devil look like?"

He should have kept quiet. Shouldn't have let them get to him. But Anthony's taunts, Henry and Nathaniel's snickering and nudging each other between the ribs, and most of all, Anthony Hawkin's smug gap-toothed grin made him recklessly mad.

"Grey skin," Jack flung out. "Golden eyes that pierce right through you." They had stopped laughing now. "Teeth as sharp and wide as a bear-trap. Long, spindly fingers like spider legs," Jack said, resting his staff in the crook of his arm as he wiggled his own for demonstration. "He catches you in his web of shadows and if you anger him, he makes you relive every bad experience you've ever had: all your worst memories, all the nightmares you've woken up screaming from."

They were hanging onto his every word transfixed, eyes wide, and mouths ajar. Nathaniel had even begun stomping his feet into the ground as if he had grown cold standing in one place, but the way he was clutching both his arms betrayed his anxiety. Henry's breathing had started to quicken by the amount of warm puffs of air that appeared near his face. A perverse thrill of glee shot through Jack to see them as such.

"You're right, he did try to steal my soul," Jack continued with his tale, the words tumbling from his mouth faster than he could think them up. "But he couldn't touch it. He only can take the wicked ones," he leveled a knowing stare at each of them. Their faces had drained of all color. "The ones who like tormenting those younger and weaker than themselves. The ones who hoist the blame onto the innocent. The ones whose committed such vile acts that it gnaws at their conscience. The ones who carry deep, dark secrets within them… those are the souls he spirits away." He threw his arms up high above his head for a final dramatic flair, raising his staff in both hands. "The last thing you'll _ever_ see is a giant, black wall of shadows swooping down for you like a broken dam tearing through the mountainside!" he shouted, bringing the staff back down and slamming the end into the cold, hard ground beneath his feet, sending pockets of snow into the air.

He couldn't have timed it better. A mighty gale of wind swept up at his last words, blowing through the forest and making the trees bend and groan at its forceful touch. With their branches creaking in protest as they shook off their snow-covered burdens to the ground, it sounded as if the entire forest was slowly coming alive—like a giant yawning into wakefulness.

It was a soft, almost-musical _ching_ -ing sound playing in their ears though that each boy looking around for the cause. Jack spotted them first: thin, delicate, crystalline icicles swaying slightly as they hung down the length of the butcher stall's roof, glittering iridescently in the sunlight. The sudden blast of cold air must have splintered their thin structure. The cracking of ice splitting the air was the warning they gave as the icicles snapped and plummeted towards the ground in a rain of translucent, shimmering shards.

They embedded themselves right at the feet of Henry and Nathaniel, and while the icicles wouldn't have hurt them even if they had fallen on them—a hard conk on the head that was sure to sprout a lump at the most—the two boys jumped so high it was a wonder they didn't tear their breeches and took off running, screaming in a manner Jack had only heard his mother do when she had seen a mouse scurry across her floorboards.

Jack doubled over laughing at the sight, leaning heavily on his staff to keep his balance. Finally catching his breath, he looked at the last boy left.

A silent staring contest was held between them for some time.

"What meat would you be wanting then?" Anthony Hawkins was the first to give in.

Snowflakes started to rain down in a gentle flurry. Jack took them as a sign of victory.

"Lamb," Jack grinned lopsidedly.

 

oOo

It had been a good day. Lydia had made a nice, juicy mutton stew that the Overlands had enjoyed before she had forced Jack to stand on a stool so she could drape the material of the governor's wife's dress over him to pin the folds down and take appropriate measurements.

Jack had stood there sulking with arms outstretched like a scarecrow, while his mother teased him endlessly ("aren't you looking more beautiful than the Queen of England herself"). But the best part had been Emma looking on as she giggled and clapped her hands, practicing her curtsey in front of him and saying "would you like some more cider, Your Majesty?"

When Jack staggered to his room late that evening, his mother having finally releasing him from the confinements of the gown, Emma was asleep on her side of the bed they shared. Jack smiled, glad that whatever had been bothering her early that morning had vanished. Putting on his nightshirt, he tucked himself in beside her and listened to her soft, steady breathing until his eyelids grew heavy.

Then right before he was about to drift off, a speck of gold flashed in the darkness of the room. Jack bolted upright peering sharply into the inky blackness, certain he had caught of glimpse of Pitch Black's eyes in the shadows.

Another flash of gold appeared, then another, then another, until he realized it wasn't the reflection of someone's eyes at all, but what looked like thousands of shimmering particles of golden dust, streaming straight through the closed window from outside, and drifting through the air towards the children's bed.

Jack looked on mesmerized by the beauty of it, wondering what it could be—certainly not moonbeams—before he noticed it spiraling down close to Emma's head. He shot his hand out without thinking, trying to brush the golden dust away unsure of its intentions. The dust swirled about before condensing into the shape of an odd sort of fish. At least he assumed it was a fish; he recognized fins and a tail, but the rest of its body was rather strange. The gleaming dust-fish leaped around him in circles doing back flips the likes of which he had never seen except for one ensnared on a fisherman's hook. Jack sat back puzzled. This glowing dust _seemed_ harmless enough, although he still had no clue what it was.

He didn't try to stop it this time as it floated above Emma's head weaving and spinning until it finally crafted itself into two small figures: a boy and girl playing hopscotch. A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth as he recognized the sight.

"Oh, _how sweet_ ," whispered an all-too familiar silky voice in his ear.

Jack bit back a strangled yelp as he nearly tumbled out of bed in surprise. Clutching the covers and willing his heartbeat to slow down to normal, he scowled at his unwelcome visitor in the night.

"What are you doing here?" he demanded.

"Really, I thought we had discussed all this last time, Jack," Pitch Black leveled a mocking, disappointed glance his way. "I patrol the night. It is the best time to utilize my… skills."

"Yeah? I don't see anyone in this room frightened by you," Jack said. He may have been startled earlier by the Boogeyman's sudden appearance, but he felt heartened to see that he was more annoyed in general at him than scared.

"Oh, believe me, if I wanting you shrieking in terror, you would be by now," Pitch chuckled darkly, sending shivers up Jack's spine. "I came to satisfy my curiosity and you have not disappointed me."

"What—" Jack began before looking back at the golden dust. "That. You can see it too?"

"I have always been able to see it, for far and too long," Pitch snarled, curling his lip up in disdain.

"What… what is it?" Jack asked.

Emma slept on undisturbed, a happy smile settling on her face as the two figures above her head continued their game of hop-scotch.

"Dreamsand," Pitch shared. "Courtesy of the Sandman, bringing children peace and reprieve in their sleep after all the harshness and horrors they have to endure while awake."

"The Sandman?" Jack echoed, dimly remembering his mother telling stories about him when he was younger. "He's real?"

"As real as I am," Pitch declared. "I was beginning to wonder if I was the only one you could see. You were ill for quite some time, so let my fearlings feed elsewhere, and you fell asleep too early last night and missed his arrival. But now I know," needle-pointed teeth flashed wickedly. "You can see _us_."

Somehow Jack got the impression Pitch wasn't just talking about himself and the Sandman. "How many… like you… are there?" he breathed out warily. Golden sand that brought dreams was one thing, but if there were other beings like Pitch, _worse_ than Pitch… Jack shuddered to imagine what they could do.

"Now, Jack, you were doing so well. We were holding a civil conversation. Don't add flavor to the mix so abruptly. You'll make them… _hungry_ ," Pitch chided, his tongue flicking out briefly over grey lips.

The darkness in the room seemed to be expanding. The air felt thicker, heavier. The shadows in the far corners began to stir restlessly as they stretched several black tendrils outward in search of their prey.

"Enough," Pitch said smoothly. With a snap of his fingers, the tendrils hastily retreated back into the shadows although the tense, heavy pressure in the air did not lift. "Such petulant children," Pitch laughed throatily, his voice dripping with amusement as he gripped Jack's shoulder with his slender fingers and squeezed. "You can't have this one. Not tonight at least. Not when he's been such a _good_ boy lately."

Jack pushed away the man's hand, wincing at the bruise he felt forming. "What are you talking about? You—you didn't just come here to find out if I could see the dreamsand, did you?" he asked.

"You're a clever lad, Jack. I'm sure you'll figure it out," Pitch said, a smile splitting his face: a truly pleased, triumphant smile.

If the Boogeyman was happy about something, that couldn't be a good thing, Jack decided. What though? What had he done to cause such malevolent glee within him? There was nothing he had done all day that could be the reason. Nothing, except for…

"You _liked_ that I told them about you," Jack stated slowly, trying to comprehend the significance of coming to this conclusion.

"It is always a pleasure to hear someone sing praises about me," Pitch crooned rather smugly. "I do think you over-exaggerated a bit much particularly my features, however, overall it was spot on appraisal of my abilities." His was jutting his chin up high, his chest was puffed out and both his arms were crossed behind his back. With the way his feather-like hair crested to a point, the Boogeyman resembled every inch of a proud rooster crowing about his own ego. It was a ridiculous image, but one he could not un-see.

Something began tickling at the base of Jack's throat. He could feel it trying to work its way upwards and force itself out. Balling his hand into a fist, he pressed it to his mouth and tried his best to fight it back, but it was no use. A strangled snort escaped from his nose involuntarily, and laughter erupted from his lips. He shut them tight immediately to muffle the sound lest he wake Emma, but he could not stop his body from shaking with silent laughter.

"Do, pray tell, Jack, what exactly you find so extraordinarily funny," Pitch sneered, his voice giving off a dangerous edge.

Jack swallowed down the laughter that threatened to bubble over again. He didn't think the Boogeyman would take kindly to him explaining how unintimidating he had looked just then. "Nothing," he said quickly, scrambling for an excuse when Pitch narrowed his eyes in suspicion. "Nothing, it's just… are you going to do this every night now? Pop in for a… chat?"

Apparently, Pitch took offense to his light-hearted tone. One second Jack was sitting upright in bed, the next he found himself shoved backwards, his head pinned tightly to his pillow and a grey-skinned hand around his neck applying gentle pressure in warning.

"You seem to be under the mistaken impression that my visitation here is amiable," Pitch stated coolly. "Allow me to make myself clear, these are my orders: you will continue to tell the villagers about me, whether true or made-up, I do not care, but you _will_ ," the hand around Jack's neck pressed down harder, "spread the glad tidings of my existence for all to hear. And if you happen to come across any other spirit such as myself, you are not to speak to them. Pretend you don't see them. Ignore them entirely. And I _will_ know if you disobey me. Did you understand all that, Jack?"

Trapped in the Boogeyman's firm hold, like a mouse between cat's paws, Jack felt very small and helpless. He tried to turn his face away to escape those golden eyes burning with such intense malice, but the hand around his neck slid up the length of his throat to capture his chin in crushing grip.

"I need an answer, Jack," Pitch said, dangerous and cruel.

Looking up at the dark, menacing figure hovering over his bed, pinning him down so effortlessly, hearing the faint rustling of the shadows in the corners beyond his field of vision, a surge of anger shot through Jack at being so weak. "What happens if I say 'no'?" he asked, trying to find some footing of control over his predicament.

He expected anger. He expected getting beaten and tossed to the shadows even. That was fine by Jack. He'd rather take any punishment than become the Boogeyman's puppet.

The grin that broke out across Pitch's face—a condescending and terrifying grin—was unexpected.

"Oh, Jack," Pitch sighed, shaking his head. "So troublesome, so rebellious. We'll have to work on that."

Then without warning, Pitch stretched out his free hand and inserted one slim, grey finger into the golden sand that was still swirling above the sleeping Emma's head.

The radiance of the sand began to fade until every last speck of gold had transformed into black as the dream collapsed inwards and a new scene played out. The boy and girl silhouettes had reformed in this new black sand, but they were no longer playing hopscotch. They were reaching out towards each other, yet neither one was taking any steps, and Jack realized in horror what he was watching a split second before the boy figure dissolved into nothing.

A wail fell from Emma's mouth as she began to thrash about on the bed, ensnared by the throes of her nightmare.

"Stop it! What are you doing? _Stop it now!"_ Jack shouted, struggling to break free from his captor's hold.

"I can't," Pitch said simply, grabbing the flailing boy's wrists in both hands. "But you can. Wake her up. Show her you're alright." He pressed his face close to Jack's. "But first you need to agree to my terms."

Broken whimpers filled the air as tears streamed down Emma's cheeks from her closed eyes. The little girl figure above her head was hunched over holding her head as she rocked back and forth in despair.

Jack swallowed hard. "If I do everything you said will you leave her alone?"

"But of course, Jack," Pitch said looking almost offended at the boy's distrust. "There are plenty of other children in this village to frighten. I only ask two simple tasks of you. Keep them and your sister will remain untouched. So, do we have a deal?"

Jack didn't think twice. "Deal," he said sharply.

His wrists were released immediately. Pitch was smiling triumphantly. "That's my boy," he cooed, smacking Jack's cheek lightly in mock-gesture of affection before melting backwards into the darkness. "Remember, Jack," his voice called out, "my fearlings are everywhere. They are _always_ watching. You can't escape them."

Then he was gone and Jack was shaking his sister and calling her name. Emma awoke gasping and shivering violently as if she had been left too long in the snow.

" _J-Jack!"_ she cried throwing her small arms around him and curling up into his warmth. "Y-you were d-dead. Y-you drow-owned…"

"Shhh," Jack murmured, petting her hair soothingly. "Hey, I'm right here. It's alright. It was just a bad dream."

"Don't die," Emma pleaded, her words muffled from her face buried in the front of his nightshirt. Her tiny hand dropped down to clutch his tightly. "Please don't die."

"I'm not going anywhere, Emma, I promise," Jack swore.

He held her close, whispering nonsense rhymes in her ear to calm her, until she drifted back into an uneasy slumber. Once he was sure she was asleep, he scooped up a handful of the black sand leftover from Emma's nightmare and let it sift through his fingers.

"I promise," he whispered into the night.

He would beat Pitch at his own game. He didn't know how just yet, but he knew he was not going to let the Nightmare King have his way.

 

_To Be Continued…_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Five months since I updated. I can't even say I had writer's block since I knew what would happen in this chapter and where I want to go with the story. I scared myself not writing for so long. Sorry for leaving anyone who was reading in the loop for so long. But hey, it's nice to see the ROTG fandom has expanded so much! Wow, look at all these wonderful fics! There's so many! And I love the crossovers with the Big Four! (Rise of the Brave Tangled Dragons). Rock on, fandom, you're so creative!
> 
> Anyway, foreshadowing! Yay! *wants to say more but really shouldn't* Anyway, you know that statue in the middle of Burgess where Jamie gets hit by the couch? It has a slab dedicated to the founder of Burgess called Thaddeus Burgess in 1798, which I'm pretty sure is a typo, because it is stated that Jack is 318 years old and that math doesn't add up. I think the year was 1698 when Burgess was formed. It fits the time line better as well as the clothing worn by the villagers in the movie. Like I said, last chapter, the year this fic takes places is roughly 1712. I don't know if I'll have Thaddeus in the tale or not. I know some people think he became governor of Burgess, but all the slab says is that he built the first log cabin there. If I do decide to put him in, Thaddeus will just be another villager. I looked up all the governors for the different settlements in Pennsylvania in 1712; way too many to keep track off, so I made up my own governor's name.
> 
> And Pitch. Pitch and Jack, I know people are wondering about the dynamics of their relationship. I think at this point, Jack is becoming more relaxed every time Pitch turns up. I guess it's sort of like jumping every time a stray firecracker goes off by your feet, but after enough of the same incident, you get used to it. So, yeah, I wouldn't call it friendship just yet, but Jack was beginning to actually be cordial to Pitch like you would if you saw a daily acquaintance and Pitch went all, "you dare have fun in my presence, fear my power". Pitch, stop that. I really can't wait to show how their bond develops and strengthens.
> 
> And I have rambled too long. I'll really try and get the next chapter out sooner. I actually had to cut some scenes out of this chapter, because they would fit better in what's coming next. Hopefully, the next chapter won't be so long in length. I want to update at least once a month. I think I can manage that.


	5. Moonlight Covenant

Tailor Saunders was a thin, bow-legged, crotchety old man with a balding head of stringy, grey hair who was forever squinting until he stumbled across his spectacles that he had lost for the tenth time that day; upon which putting them on, magnified his beady eyes to the size of marbles and also allowed him to properly see the pitiful handiwork of Jack's that he had been working on for the past hour.

"Dagnabit, boy!" Tailor Saunders barked out rapping the measuring rod sharply over Jack's knuckles. "Eight years you've been my apprentice and your craftsmanship is still no better than a common table-monkey! Hold it out and tell me what you've done wrong!"

Rubbing the top of his hand and biting back a scowl, Jack picked up the waist-coat and held it out in front of him. One of the sleeves hung forlornly a good several inches longer than the other side. Also, Jack realized the buttons he had sewn on were glaring at him in an accusing, zig-zag manner instead of a neat row.

Jack opened his mouth to recite his mistakes, but Tailor Saunders cut him with a frustrated _harrumph._ "You lack focus and determination, that's your problem. Your head is always off in the clouds. You'll never be master tailor if you cannot devote yourself to the trade. This is your way of life, boy, understand? Abuse it, neglect it, and you'll find yourself without a roof over your head and living off another's welfare. Is that what you want?"

The words made perfect sense, but that did not stop Jack from resenting them. Too angry to speak, he shook his head.

"The Lord hates idle workers," Tailor Saunders sighed heavily. "My boy, there are so many opportunities you are letting pass by. Are you aware if you hone your skills, we could travel down to Williamsburg and I would introduce you to the city's inner circle of tailors?"

Jack looked up in surprise. Well, that lecture certainly hadn't gone the way he had expected.

"A good tailor never sticks to just one location," Tailor Saunders said. "He journeys abroad and learns from others. He meets people and forms a chain of acquaintances that will aid him later in life. Wouldn't you like that, boy? To travel and see new things?"

Jack could hardly believe what he was hearing. Burgess was all he knew, all he ever had known, and all he was probably ever going to know. It had never really bothered him. The village was nice enough even if it did have a few rough patches like Anthony Hawkins. He had been born here. He had assumed he was going to grow up and die here as well. If he had known he might be able to see the world with this dreadful, boring task of being a tailor, well, maybe he might have put in more of an effort years ago.

Tailor Saunders nodded at Jack's wide-eyed, stunned look. "You've got the itching foot, the restless urge to wander. That's the reason you have trouble paying attention to anything for too long. Got it from your mother and father."

Sidestepping the gibe about his parents, Jack questioned hesitantly, "If I visit Williamsburg for a time or settle down somewhere else, what would Burgess do for a lack of tailor?"

The measuring rod came down again—this time on Jack's head. "They still got me, boy!" Tailor Saunders wheezed indignantly. "I still have a decade or so left in these old bones! I'll take on another apprentice, one not so thick-headed and stubborn as you. And they also have your mother, a wonderfully skilled seamstress, for however long until she remarries."

And just like that the world came crashing down upon Jack's shoulders.

"What?" he said feeling something in his chest constrict.

"Your mother is too fine a woman to waste away being a widow forever," Tailor Saunders declared. "She's given eight years of her life to mourn your father's passing. I admire her devotion, however she still has an abundance of youth left remaining unto her still. I see no reason for her not to grasp at happiness when the opportunity presents itself."

Jack swallowed hard. "I don't… I don't understand." He didn't quite follow what Tailor Saunders was trying to say, but the feeling of dread had settled thick in his stomach like a stone.

"Thomas Grymes visited me the other day," Tailor Saunders explained. "Seems he came to seek my advice on how long it was proper to wait before seeking out a widow woman's hand in marriage."

There was a dull sort of pounding echoing in his ears. Jack realized it was the sound of his own heart that had begun to beat rapidly. Unconsciously, he gripped the ruined waist-coat in his hands tightly enough that the back of his knuckled turned white.

Tailor Saunders continued speaking, either not noticing or ignoring his apprentice's distress. "I told him eight years was more than an adequate mourning period. He comes with a good offer. He's a skillful trapper and has accumulated quite a bit of wealth over the years. He'll see to it your mother and sister are well-provided for. You and your family will never have to worry about surviving another harsh winter or anything ever again."

The chair Jack was sitting in scooted back with force as he jumped up and slammed both hands angrily down onto the table. "My family is doing just fine on our own!" he shouted. "Tell Trapper Grymes to put an ad in the newspaper if he's that desperate for a wife!"

Tailor Saunders smacked the end of his cane on the floor sharply. "Don't take that disrespectful tone with me, you idle tablemonkey!" he yelled with a temper to rival Jack's. "Who are you to deny your mother a bit of comfort and happiness or do you expect her to die old and alone? What an ungrateful son!"

"She won't die alone! She has me and my sister!" The anger was churning inside Jack madly now, making his hands shake with the ferocity of it. "We'll take care of her! I am _not_ ungrateful!"

" _Ungrateful!"_ Tailor Saunders barked out. _Smack,_ went his cane on the floor again. "Who do you think paid for the all doctor visits and the medicine while you were lying in bed completely useless these past weeks? You think your mother had the money for such extravagant expenses? Your mother, who had to pass off so many work projects onto me because she had to look after you. You who don't give a second thought about the future. Your sister is going to grow up and want to get married someday. What kind of dowry can she possibly offer her husband? And you, boy, your sewing skills are atrocious at best. Do you honestly believe the people of Burgess would support a tailor like that? Think before chewing your gums so arrogantly, boy!"

Jack simmered where he stood, hands balled into fists at his side as he trembled in a helpless rage, hating the cruel truth that was flung at him.

"Thomas Grymes is a good man," Tailor Saunders insisted, leveling a piercing gaze over the top of his spectacles. "So a man wants a reprieve of loneliness and a faithful companion to end out the remainder of his days. It's normal to wish for. Who is to say your mother doesn't feel the same way? Don't be so selfish, boy. Bah, go!" the old man motioned towards the door. "I've had all I can take of your hot-headedness today. Go cool off in the snow and put that mind of yours to work. Try to remember that the world doesn't revolve around you!"

oOo

The promise of snow falling later on hung heavy in the grey, overcast sky. A chilled wind whipped through his hair and tugged at his clothes. A bit further away in the field, the sound of children's laughter reached his ears. Turning his head, Jack looked to see Emma, Abigail and Caleb building a snowman, their cheeks flushed pink from the cold. His sister caught him watching and waved at him to join them, but Jack smiled faintly and shook his head. He wasn't in a playful mood at the moment.

Images kept flashing through his mind: Thomas Grymes moving into the Overland house, the house that his father had built with his own two hands. Thomas Grymes sitting at the head of their table in his father's chair. Thomas Grymes… with his mother…

Jack gritted his teeth and clenched his hand around his staff as anger swelled up within him anew.

The dark spaces between the trees at the edge of the snow-covered field seemed to thicken and blend together.

" _Jaaaaaaaaaaaaaack,"_ the wind whispered as it wound through the swaying branches.

Jack gave no indication that he had heard, nor any outward sign of panic or fear. He had no time to be the victim of such cheap tricks.

A shadow more pale than the others detached itself from the rest of the darkness and slid forward smoothly. "Are you ignoring me, Jack?" came the question with a sharp edge of warning.

"Wouldn't dream of it," Jack muttered, silently praising himself on not jumping at the spirit's abrupt arrival this time. On the other hand, it did disturb him at how familiar he was getting to be with the Boogeyman's presence.

Without warning, his staff was jerked to one side and he was pulled roughly off balance and toppled headfirst into a snowdrift. Gasping at the sudden bite of cold to his skin, Jack scrambled upright, clumps of snow falling off his shoulders and head in his haste. "What did you do that for?" he sputtered indignantly, trying to pinpoint which exact shadow was the culprit.

Narrowed golden eyes flashed briefly on the shadowed side of a tree's trunk. "You haven't kept your word…" the faintest hiss of words was uttered. Jack supposed their intention was to be threatening, but they came across as slightly sulky-sounding, like a child who hadn't gotten his way.

"It hasn't even been one full day yet!" Jack cried. "And I had work to attend to! I can't just cast everything aside to go bidding to your whim!"

A dry chuckled echoed throughout the branches of the trees. "Can't you?"

"Don't you have anyone else you can go and haunt?" Jack snapped.

A shadow wound itself about his wrist and squeezed ruthlessly. "Be careful, Jack. Your scent is not nearly as invigorating as last night. I do not find your uncouth human manners as amusing as before."

"Are you saying _I'm_ the one who's being rude?" Jack said, finding it quite incredulous at being told this by his very own nightly stalker and blackmailer.

"I have dragged others into madness for far less insolence. You are ungrateful to my good graces."

_Ungrateful._

The word pricked him like an irritable bee sting, igniting the anger within him to rise to the surface again.

"The world doesn't revolve around _you!"_ Jack shouted, feeling vindictive satisfaction at being able to toss those words at someone else for a change.

The air around him noticeably thickened. It felt difficult to breathe, like the time his family's chimney had stopped up and the soot had nearly suffocated them. The hairs on Jack's arm tingled like they always did when lightning struck right before a storm broke out. An invisible cord of panic tightened around his chest. Perhaps it had not been the best idea to lash out his personal frustrations at an immortal spirit who easily took offense.

Just what Pitch's retaliation would have been, Jack never found out. He was interrupted by three unlikely saviors, if you even could call them that.

"Talking to yourself is the first sign of madness they always say," Anthony Hawkins' voice rang out behind him.

Inwardly groaning, Jack turned around to see the butcher's son in tow with Nathaniel and Henry. Well, it was mid-afternoon. He supposed they were all free a couple of hours until their evening chores.

"What do you want?" Jack said, not bothering to hide his exasperation.

"Four yards of satin. Navy blue," Anthony declared, folding his arms over his chest curtly. "The price of silence for our not telling the entire town you really are loony in the head."

"What?"

"I know the governor's wife is having your mother make her new dress. I even know what color the fabric is. My mother's been chatting with Mrs. Hamilton's maid, you see," Anthony explained. "And Father is taking us to visit our relatives in Philadelphia. They're city folks, much better off in their way of living and I don't want to look like a poor country bumpkin while I'm there. I'm thinking nothing looks more fashionable than a nice blue satin cape."

Jack was quiet for a moment, trying to make sense of this bizarre request. "You know I can't sew worth a damn," he said. "You'll just be wasting your money."

"Yes, you were a half-wit before you broke through the ice and now you're a full nitwit," Anthony proclaimed with a hint of annoyance that he wasn't being understood. "I'm not paying you, Overland. And you're not going to sew anything. All you're going to do is give me four yards of that satin fabric before I leave. I'll give it to a more talented tailor in Philadelphia. Maybe I won't even have a cape made. Maybe I'll just sell the material."

"You want me to _steal_ for you?" Jack couldn't keep the shock out of his voice.

He couldn't believe what Anthony was asking. It didn't matter that there would be a full abundance of that navy blue satin fabric left over after the governor's wife's dress was done. It wasn't his family's to keep. Every yard had already been estimated for the length and size of the dress. All that would be added to the finished cost were the hours it took Lydia to sew it. Every remaining yard of fabric would be carefully counted by the governor's servants to make sure none had been pilfered away. If four yards were to turn up missing, his mother would be the first one to be blamed.

"You're good at making up stories," Anthony grinned at him. "I'm sure you'll think of some excuse."

"I'm not going to do it," Jack refused flatly.

"So you're alright with everyone thinking you're crazy then?"

"It's not the first time in history that someone was delirious with fever for a short while. Go on and tell them," Jack dared. "They'll laugh it off as nothing more than a pack of schoolboy-ish name-calling."

"You know, it's not so much as us telling folks we think you're crazy," Anthony drawled out. "It's more the question of 'are you sane and yet still talking to things unseen'?"

"What—"

"I wonder what Father Goodall will say if we mention that Jack told us all about his conversation with the devil?" Anthony wondered off hand to Nathaniel.

"Oh! Do you think he'll get in trouble?" Nathaniel asked with false-worry in his tone.

"Possibly, but it's for the good of the community as well his," Anthony played along. "His soul is in jeopardy! This might be our only chance to save our friend from the Evil One's clutches!"

"Hey, hey," Henry butted in with a hopeful, excited gleam in his eyes. "Do you think this will be big enough to warrant a witch trial?"

Jack's breath hitched in his chest. He was aware that his right hand had begun shaking and he tightened the grip on his staff so it wouldn't be so noticeable.

"There hasn't been a witch trial in twenty years," he said, wincing as he heard his voice croak in half.

It was something the children overheard the adults talking about in hushed voices now and then. How more than two decades ago, there had been a mass panic of witchcraft throughout the colonies and accusations flying rampant. All it took was one odd little thing, one unusual circumstance out of the ordinary, one unfortunate event that if mistaken the wrong way that with the right number of people voicing their concerns, could be blown up to be something evil that must be destroyed. So many people had been hanged…

But all that was in the past. The courts had declared the trials unlawful and banned them. They had even given the families of the victims compensation for the injustice and loss they had suffered. In fact, the adults in Burgess often commented the whole witchcraft scare had been nothing more than people misunderstanding those who were mentally ill or physically sick with an unknown disease. In fact, some of the rougher, more rowdy crowd in the tavern often joked they wished the trials were still legal so they could blame someone they disliked for practicing witchcraft.

No one actually believed in witchcraft anymore. Anthony was bluffing, trying to blackmail him into stealing. Jack had nothing to fear.

Anthony curled his lips upward to reveal the gap between his two front teeth—it was his tell-tale sign of victory.

Jack could his own heartbeat pounding rapidly in his ears…

"Jack! Let's go home, Jack!" Emma was beside him suddenly, tugging at his arm. "It's supper time. Mama will be worried."

Henry and Nathaniel broke out into ugly peals of laughter. Anthony only smiled more broadly. "Yes, Jack, run home to Mama now and think about your answer. I leave next Friday."

"I don't need until then," Jack swallowed hard. His throat was dry. "The answer is _no."_

Anthony's smirk had transformed into a scowl.

"Let's go, Emma," Jack said, grabbing his sister's hand and leading her away. A few feet further he could see Abigail and Caleb waiting for them so they could walk home together.

Jack heard footsteps crunching in the snow behind them as the three boys followed.

Nathaniel's low, husky voice began belting out a well-known nursery rhyme in a taunting manner: _"Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water…"_

The high, reedy vocalisms of Henry soon joined in: _"Jack fell down and broke his crown and Jill came tumbling after!"_

Emma's face looked crest-fallen. She hated that nursery rhyme. It wasn't the first time they both had heard it sung to make fun of them either.

"Ignore them," Jack whispered to her. Over his shoulder he called out, "The church will never accept you into their choir! You sound horrible! You need to work on your lung exercises!"

"You should be careful with the company you keep, Jack," Anthony's voice warned. "The craziness might be catching. You wouldn't it to affect the people you care about."

Jack would have kept on walking, except that Anthony wasn't talking to him anymore.

"Be careful, Emma, or you'll be your brother's next sacrifice to the devil!"

Emma stopped in her tracks. Jack looked down to see her face as pale as the color of snow.

"Have you seen him do it yet, Emma?" Anthony asked. "Talking to the darkness like something was there?"

Emma's hand was trembling. Jack knew she was remembering that first feverish night with him pulling at her hair and screaming at the shadows.

Anthony's rage at Jack's refusal was obvious when he stabbed the final blade in. "The devil spared his soul when he fell through the ice, but his body still died. Now he's a living, walking corpse: a plague set loose on earth to curse anyone who comes across his path!"

Jack's own anger that Anthony would spout such terrible lies was halted when Emma ripped away her hold on his hand. Any brief flash of fear he might have had that his sister believed them was put to rest when she flung herself at the older boy yowling like an upset kitten.

"LIAR, LIAR! YOU'RE A LIAR!" she shrieked, stretching her short arms as far up the front of Anthony's shirt as she could like she wanted to reach up and claw his eyes out.

Anthony seemed just as startled as Jack was. Snatching her by the wrists, he pushed her away where she fell sideways into the snow.

A painful cry split the air and Jack rushed over to her. Helping her sit upright, he noticed the large rock that had been partially uncovered from the snow by her fall. Emma's eyes were glistening with tears and she was holding one hand over her mouth. Cupping her jaw, Jack pulled her hand gently away. All it took was one glance of her bleeding gums and the empty space where one of her front teeth had been to cause him to snap.

He fell on the three boys with an angry roar, swinging his staff wildly about not particularly aiming anywhere, just blindly lashing out. He managed to score a few solid hits if their wounded grunts were anything to go by, then his legs were knocked out underneath him and his staff was kicked out of his hands. He found himself sprawled out flat on his back in the snow with Henry sitting on his chest. The boy raised his fist and Jack braced himself for the punch that never came. Caleb came crashing into Henry's back shouting a steady stream of swear words that would have made his mother wash his mouth out with soap if she had heard him.

Henry rolled off him, taking the heavy weight off his chest and Jack scrambled in the snow for his staff as saw Nathaniel bearing down on him. Feeling his fingers brush against the wood, he curled his hand around it. Jack's arm as well as his staff whipped around to smack Nathaniel soundly between the eyes. Looking quite dazed, the boy toppled over backwards cross-eyed.

Panting for breath, he looked around until he caught sight of Anthony. The boy was just standing there, hands in pockets, head cocked to one side, eyebrows furrowed, and staring at him with a half curious and half calculating gaze.

"Caleb!" Jack called out. He hoped the kid was alright. He was ten years younger the rest of the older boys.

Caleb trotted over to his side a few seconds later sporting a magnificent beauty of a black eye. The boy was absolutely beaming despite this, satisfaction oozing out of the huge grin he wore.

"Good job," Jack said. He could see Henry in the distance doubled over, clutching his stomach. The kid must have packed a few good wallops. "Go take Emma and your sister home."

Caleb didn't argue. Walking over to where Abigail kneeled beside Emma, he pulled both girls to their feet and threw his arms over their shoulders protectively. They left the snow-covered field in the same way, though poor Caleb's gait was bit lop-sided since his sister was a good foot taller than him. Jack watched them from the corner of his eyes until they were out of sight.

"Don't you _ever_ lay a hand on my sister again!" Jack said, leveling the crook of his staff at Anthony in warning. "Whatever filthy lies you come up with you say them to my face and not behind my back! You want to tell the whole town I'm crazy and have conversations with the devil, you go ahead! I'll tell everyone you're only saying that now because you asked me to steal fabric from the governor's wife and I refused! Let's see which side believes who!"

Anthony was silent. Jack could practically hear the gears in his head turning as the boy weighed his options. Rebekah Hamilton was sure to take the Overlands' side. She was a long time admirer of his mother's designs and he was no stranger to her either. When he was younger, he often had gone with his mother to trips to the governor's house to pick up and drop off materials. He remembered stuffing his face with macaroons and drinking honeyed-tea until he fell asleep. The governor's wife held no love for the butcher also, probably because his work consisted of slaughtering animals. Jack had once seen Mrs. Hamilton weep openly over a bird she had found in her garden with a broken wing. Yes, if he was in favor with the people in high positions, Anthony would hold his tongue in cheek… wouldn't he?

"An-tho-dyyyy," Nathaniel whined, staggering into appearance on the boy's right. "I thung by dose is broggin." The boy's nose was indeed swollen and purple-black in color, courtesy of Jack's staff.

Henry shuffled over, one hand pressed to his side. Jack hoped Caleb had managed to crack a few ribs.

"I don't have to say anything to anyone, Overland," Anthony finally declared. "Because you'll slip up one day. Someone will catch you talking to nothing and you won't be able to stop even though you know you should. Everything has a price and trading your soul for whatever you did is going to cost you an eternity of damnation."

Jack realized the boy was serious, wasn't merely spouting words when he touched his forehead, stomach, and left and right shoulders with his forefinger and thumb: the sign of the Holy Cross to ward off evil.

oOo

His sister had already been tucked into their mother's bed by the time he got back home, though she was still awake by the sound of her crying.

Jack watched his mother wrap her shawl around her shoulders and put on her boots before she headed for the door. "Where are you going?" he asked. It was late. The sun had almost set.

"To get pain medicine for your sister from Doctor Brown," Lydia said, tucking her hair back into her knitted wool cap. "And also to give those three boys' mothers a piece of my mind. Picking on children smaller than them! When Caleb dropped off Emma, his right eye was swollen shut. Next time you boys decide to fight, you leave the younger ones out of it."

Jack opened his mouth. What he was going to say, he didn't know. Perhaps, "I'll fetch the medicine from Doctor Brown, don't go" or "don't bother talking to their families please because they might convince you I've made a pact with a devil". Yet what came out instead was, "Mother, are you going to marry Thomas Grymes?"

Lydia Overland's hand froze on the door latch. "What on earth on you talking about, Jack?" she asked, forcing a laugh.

"Tailor Saunders says that Thomas Grymes is going to ask you to be his wife," the word spilled out of Jack's mouth and as much as he wanted to shut up, he couldn't. "He said he helped out a lot around the house when I was ill. He said I was ungrateful and wrong to come between the happiness of two people. Mother… do you _want_ to marry Thomas Grymes?"

"Jack," his mother closed her eyes briefly before opening them again in an irritated manner. "I don't have time for this right now. Go see to your sister. There's soup in the pot over the fire if you're hungry. I'll be back in an hour."

The door opened to the cold and his mother latched it behind her… but not before Jack caught the faintest whisper that fell from her lips, "Though… it was rather nice to not have to worry about so many things by myself…"

Jack stood alone in the log-cabin, a thousand emotions bottled up tight inside him, and the only thing he could do to distract himself from examining them too closely was to check on his sister.

Emma was sobbing quietly into her pillow, the blanket twisted around her and clenched between two tiny fists.

"Does it hurt?" he asked, brushing her cheek softly.

"My t-tooth…" Emma gulped back tears. "I l-lost it… in the s-sno-o-ow . Now the T-tooth Fairy wo-on't c-come…"

Jack placed a hand on her forehead. It felt a bit warmer than usual. "I'll go find it for you, Emma," he whispered.

His sister's crying had stopped. "R-really?" she asked, her voice sounding tired.

"Go to sleep now," Jack smiled, petting the top of her head. "The Sandman will bring you good dreams."

Emma nodded, letting her eyelids droop shut. Jack stayed with her until her breathing was slow and even, then let himself out into the night.

oOo

Jack stepped onto the snow-covered field where he had fought earlier. The moon shone down brightly from the clear-night sky, illuminating the whiteness of the snow. The rock which had knocked out Emma's tooth stood out visibly in the pale light, but Jack did go over to search near it.

"Pitch… Pitch Black…" he cried out hoarsely.

The shadows crept out from the edges of the woods, over the vast, empty field, up the side of hill to where Jack stood and solidified into the tall, imposing figure of the Nightmare King.

"To seek me out yourself… this is a rare treat," Pitch said, the dark chuckle that followed sounding like the rumbling purr of cat.

"Do you… do you only need to frighten children?" Jack asked, struggling to find the right words. "I mean… can you scare adults too?"

The intensity of which Pitch's narrow golden-eyed gaze bored down upon him made Jack's skin crawl.

"What are you asking, Jack?"

"You said you dragged others into madness before… can you really do that? Strike so much fear into someone… that they… they lose their mind?"

The laughter started low in Pitch's throat then exploded into a full-fledged maniacal cackle as the spirit's form nearly bent over backwards unnaturally.

A thin black tendril separated from the body of shadows and wound itself around Jack's legs and up his chest where it flicked out its tongue almost lovingly against the boy's cheek.

"Oh, Jack," Pitch crowed in delight. "You _are_ a selfish soul, aren't you?"

Jack wished he could deny it, but he couldn't. He didn't liked things being taken from him, he never had. He didn't have much in this world, but the little that he did have, he cherished sincerely. He had learned years ago material possessions paled in comparison a living, breathing person. Those things could be easily broken, easily replaced, but to have someone's existence near to his heart cut short, torn away, never to return—those wounds cut deep.

He wasn't asking for much. He just wanted to live out the rest of his life with his mother and sister at his side and not worry about any interloper coming to whisk them away or shove him out of the picture. He wanted to walk throughout Burgess without someone trying to turn his family against him. He just wanted some semblance of control to make the tide turn in his favor for once and Pitch was right there in front of him with the solution to all his problems.

"I'll do what you want," Jack said, trying hard not to think too much about what he was agreeing to. He might feel ashamed, might feel revulsion at how easily such a plan had taken shape in his mind. Right now he was angry, angry and frustrated at being helpless all at the same time and he focused on those feelings instead. "I'll tell people about you. I'll spread such stories about the Boogey Man that the world has never heard of before. I know that's why you're so happy to have found me. I'm a contagion, a disease."

Anthony's words echoed in his mind: _a plague set loose on earth to curse anyone who comes across his path._

Jack finally looked up. Pitch's face was filled with something akin to adoration as he stared down at him.

"You can't scare the children though," Jack laid down his own terms firmly. "They're innocent." It wasn't their fault they lived in such a world where they were corrupted by harsh reality. "Just the adults, the ones who deserve to have some fear struck in them."

"The ones _you_ deem to deserve it, Jack?" Pitch murmured, a smile hovering lightly over his lips. "Just the children in this town then… I can spare them."

Jack nodded and didn't argue. Once he could have fooled himself into believing he cared about the world as a whole, but not anymore. He tried to have a positive attitude in general but it was only a façade. Growing up left you cynical about a lot of things, and there was only room in his heart for so many.

"You said once before that the world doesn't revolve around you, Jack," Pitch stated, laying a hand on his shoulder. It was oddly warm to the touch. "That's where you're wrong," Slender fingers reached under his chin to tilt his head upwards and Jack found himself ensnared and held fast by the man's golden eyes. They seemed to shine brighter and more fiercely than the moon in the sky itself. "That's when you simply _make it so that it does."_

_To Be Continued..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I did it again, didn't I? Five months between updates. I knew what I wanted to happen in this story; I just felt no motivation to write. It's been terrifying. 23rd is my birthday so this kind of my gift to myself and you all!^^
> 
> Tablemonkey: lowest level of the tailor trade. Basically, all they did was sew. Tailors in larger cities generally a number of people working in their shop and they did different tasks: cutters cut patterns, finishers did intricate, elaborate details on the finishing touches of the final design. The head tailor usually climbed up to his position of power by being a master in all three areas. Anyone can sew though. That's why they were called tablemonkeys: it was no skill to brag about. The fact that Jack still has trouble getting his stitches even after all these years and can't piece together an outfit, it really is an insult to the master who taught him, especially when you realize Tailor Saunders had to teach Lydia to fold and fit and add finishing touches to the "sewn materials" and she does it just fine.
> 
> About the witch trials, you can look them up in you're interested. Far too much information to put here, but I did give a brief summary about them in chapter. They started in 1692 and were over around 1697, when the courts finally called them "unjust" and banned them due to most cases presented with circumstantial evidence and "she said-he said" testimony. The year is 1712 in this story. Witch trials would be illegal, but there's no telling what a small town community would do if they all found themselves scared out of their wits without any logical reason. They'd start searching for anything to blame and god help anyone they found fault with. (I should just put here, no this Abigail Williams in the story is not the same one from the witch trials. People were asking about her. I just wanted a Puritan name for her and Abigail was very common. That's not to say she hasn't been told that her name is cursed because of her predecessor bearing it, poor thing).
> 
> Anyway, ooh, bit of a shocker at the end, isn't it? Jack has never seemed like a purely "good" person to me. He refused to join the Guardians at first quite frankly because he thought the job was boring. He wanted to recover his memories in the tooth box so he stayed alongside the Guardians, (and I bet he was more than a little happy at all the company after so long in solitude). Yes he does have a conscience and good morals which is why he teamed up with them against Pitch, but you can't convince me that if Pitch has showed up a bit earlier (like that scene on the roof with Jack asking the moon why no one could see him), he could have won him over to his side for at least a trial run or even just for a bit of companionship. Jack refused to join Pitch in Antartica because by that time Pitch had killed Sandy and didn't word things very well. Pitch did a good job using empathy to sway Jack's feelings despite all he had done so far, it almost worked, but he slipped up when his ego got in the way. I tried to show how Jack would still willingly work alongside Pitch even if he hates/doesn't agree with all his methods. You have to twist things a bit in his favor, agree to some his own terms, not make it all about you. And agreeing not to harm those Jack cares about is probably a very good starting point. Jack meanwhile, actually believes he is beating Pitch in a way by doing what he wants but bending his rules. You're wondering why Pitch agreed so easily to it? Because he knows Jack is going to fall one day. One day after thinking so long in the manner he has, people won't matter so much to him. The children of Burgess are going to grow up into the same types of adults that Jack despises.
> 
> This chapter is too long so I had to cut scenes out and put them in the next chapter. If you're wondering about Anthony's odd behavior towards Jack, let's just say something came to his attention. I will also say Pitch knows something about Jack that he's not telling him either. Right now, he's just more than pleased that Jack isn't fighting him anymore, is working alongside him. (Plus he's lonely and likes his company. Shut up, Pitch you do. XP ).
> 
> P.S. I haven't forgotten about Emma's tooth and neither has Pitch. Muwahahahaha.

**Author's Note:**

> Bless the meme for such amazing prompts! Anyway, yes, Death is really Pitch. He's just toying with Jack's head right now and making him believe otherwise to make the fear more potent. He's a jerk like that. The prompt is actually Blackfrost or whatever the pairing name is called. I might go down that path. I'm not adverse to it, however, I want to establish their friendship first. Pitch has severe trust issue as well as possessive tendencies now that someone can finally see him. I think Jack will see/meet the other Guardians as well in this fic. His near-death experience brought about that ability. The downside is that everyone thinks he's out of his head now. Decided to finally post this here since everyone kept telling me to.


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